Season 10: Episode 4: The Widow Tree
by Jenthewarrior
Summary: When a local 'witching' festival goes down in flames, Mulder and Scully must discover the true cause before vandalism turns into murder.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N:** _Here we are again! I was very excited to write this story, so I ended up making a cool cover for it (at least I hope it's cool) to allude to some of its major themes. I've always enjoyed a good witch story, and since the very first episode established that Mulder and Scully have moved to a very 'witchy' place, I though it would be a good time to explore that. I hope you enjoy this fourth installment in my X-files series!_

 **XxX**

 **Chapter 1.**

 **February 18, 2011.**

Iden took a big breath and blew, extinguishing ten candles at once. Her audience cheered and her adoptive mother gave her a tight squeeze, but Iden was too focused to respond. She shut her eyes tightly, balled up her fists, and put all her power into her wish. When it was done, and the words were echoing around in her head, she opened her eyes and jumped up into the first set of arms she could find. Dana folded her into a warm mom hug and murmured, "Happy birthday, sweetheart."

It was probably the best birthday she had ever had. Everyone was there – Charlie and Sarah flew down from New York, Nancy brought her husband and their three sons, Hector and his kids all brought presents, the weird scientist Fox made friends with in Kentucky came to give her a colorful cryptozoology book, and Katie Whitehead and her dad even stopped by. Dana and Fox had covered their little country home in decorations and made a banner with her name over it to hang over the kitchen door. Everyone was loud and happy and Iden had never felt so special.

Birthdays were usually quiet affairs, sitting at home with Deloris and eating supermarket cupcakes. Her sister had never really understood birthdays – but that was forgivable now that Iden knew Deloris had been an alien.

Once the cake was distributed and the gifts were all torn open, the party broke into a few globs of adults talking amongst themselves, and kids running wild in the yard. Iden thought about joining them for a while, but ended up hanging out with Dana by the back door. Her mother seemed content with this arrangement. She folded her arms around Iden and hummed softly, swaying back and forth to some song in her head.

Charlie stood with them for a while, just as bold a redhead as his sister, and sipped from the beer in his hand. He watched the kids play. "Man, I miss that."

"No one will judge you if you join them," Dana said.

Charlie laughed. "Do you remember? Huh? We used to play that all the time. You, me, and Bill. You were the fastest, I was the smartest, and-"

"Bill was the biggest, I remember." Dana had a gleam in her eyes.

"Almost been a year, huh?" Charlie looked at Iden now, pointing at her with his beer can. "You must be a strong kid, putting up with these two for so long." He gestured sideways, encompassing the house, where Fox was somewhere entertaining other guests.

Iden smiled. It was impossible to dislike Charlie. He was always happy, he spoke quickly and with a strange, songlike rhythm, and there was no one on the planet he couldn't befriend. He was like Fox in that way. He had also come all the way down here just to wish her a happy birthday and give her a present, and that meant a lot.

"Hey, watch it," Dana said. "You have to spend the night with us."

Charlie shrugged, "Yeah, well, how about we all keep our pants on tonight?"

"What about Frankie?" Iden asked quickly, before Dana could respond.

Charlie looked quizzical, "Who?"

"The dog," Dana provided, motioning to the yard, where the multi-colored cattle dog was racing around with the kids, having the absolute time of her life.

"Oh, yeah. No, no pants for the dog. What happened to her ears, by the way? Sarah asked me."

"Some jerk-face cut them off," Iden answered, again cutting Dana off. "And if I ever find out who did it, I'll cut _his_ ears off, too."

"No, you won't." Dana looked at her seriously.

"Call me, and I'll do it for you," Charlie said, winking.

Iden grinned at him. "Are you sure you have to go back to New York?"

Charlie clutched his heart in mock surprise, sliding down the doorframe to get to her height. "It's a damn shame, but I do. You know, I got hotdogs to eat, taxis to hail…"

"But you can do that here!" Iden insisted. "And me and Sarah could play together!"

"You drive a hard bargain. I'll tell you what. If I ever find work down south, this town will be my first choice. Deal?"

Iden nodded, and Dana rolled her eyes.

It was the best day of her life, aside from the day she was adopted, of course. Iden played until dusk, when the rest of the party broke up and the stragglers finally went home. She sat in her room and talked to Sarah for hours afterward, laughing so much she cried. Sarah told her all about New York, describing massive buildings and busy streets, and Iden told Sarah all about Virginia, about the quiet, lazy streams and the way Fox liked to go get the mail in his underwear, in the snow. When Iden told her how Dana had locked him out once, Sarah snorted soda out of her nose.

Iden was having so much fun she almost forgot her last, most important request. It was midnight before it popped back into her head, and she rushed out of her room to find Dana.

Charlie and Fox were sitting on the couch, drinking beer and talking about whatever they were watching on TV. Iden crept past them into the master bedroom, where Dana was sitting up in bed, reading a small novel that was pinched in her left hand.

Iden hopped up on the bed and sat across from her, "Whatcha reading?"

"Just a little practical physics," Dana responded, shutting the book with a snap and smiling at Iden. "Did you have fun today?"

"Yeah. I just wish Sarah could stay."

"Maybe we'll go up to New York and see them next time I get a holiday."

Iden brightened. "Really?"

"Really."

Iden was content for a moment, picturing all the amazing things Sarah had described, and then she recalled why she had come in here. "Dana… I wanted to ask for one more thing, for my birthday."

Dana looked a little apprehensive, "What is it?"

"I want to go to the festival."

Every year, the neighboring town of Swanford hosted the Widow Tree Witching Festival and Iden had never been allowed to go. Deloris always said the festival was dangerous and full of imposters, though Iden doubted it could be both of those things at the same time. She worried that Dana would be the one to tell her she couldn't go, so she asked her directly.

Dana surprised her, "When is it?"

"Two weeks from now, I think."

"Okay. We can go."

Iden squealed and launched herself at Dana, wrapping her in a tight hug. "Thank you!"

Dana squeezed her, laughing, "Did you think I would say no?"

"Well, Fox thought you might."

Dana scoffed. "It may surprise you to learn that Mulder is wrong sometimes."

Iden sat back, grinning. It was her best birthday ever, and she knew it could never be topped. It was simply not possible to fill her heart with more joy.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2.**

It was twenty planks across and fourteen feet off the ground, with rope side rails that came all the way up to her shoulders. It seemed perfectly safe. Other kids ran across it, sneakers pounding and making the whole thing tremble, but Iden froze before she could take another step.

She stood there in the middle of the wooden playground, weighing her options. She could go back down and admit defeat, sulking up to Fox and Dana after declaring that the imposing playground was no concern. Or she could press on, striding across this swaying wooden bridge like everyone else and swallowing that sick feeling she had in her stomach. Her bad feelings were usually right, and the fear of that bridge caving in beneath her was crippling.

"Hey, how's it hangin'?"

Fox was below her, peering up through the bars. When people asked, Iden always told them that he was her dad, and Dana was her mom, and even though they gave her weird looks, Iden thought they were all a lot alike. Fox was curious and wild, and Dana was good and compassionate. Iden was a mix of the two of them on the inside, and the outside barely mattered.

She went over to him, sitting by the bars and poking her arms through. Dana was hanging back, talking to another mom but keeping an eye on the two of them.

"You okay?" Fox asked, reaching up to slap the back of her hand. Iden withdrew, laughing.

But her stomach still felt sick. She glanced back at the bridge. "I just… had a bad feeling."

Fox followed her eyes, nodding to himself. "Is it the bridge, or something else?"

"What else?"

"Maybe you're afraid because of how high up it is, because of what Deloris did."

Iden flinched, recalling what her sister (or not her sister) had done to force Fox into shooting her. Deloris had dangled her over a balcony and dropped her, and if Dana had not been below to catch her, she might not even be here right now.

Fox smiled thoughtfully, "You can come down if you want."

"No. I can do it." Iden looked at the bridge again, empowered by what he said. If he was right, her bad feeling was just normal fear, and not her mind trying to warn her of something awful. She could deal with fear, overcome it.

She stood up bravely, stiff-legged, and made her way to the bridge, rushing across it and finding herself on the other side before the fear could really take hold. She turned back to grin at Fox, who was strolling back to Dana, and he waved at her.

"We thought you were never gonna cross it."

Iden jumped and found two girls standing on the platform in front of her. One was older, and one younger, and they looked like sisters.

"Are you afraid of heights?" the older girl went on.

Iden shrugged, "I guess."

"Me too," the younger girl said.

"I'm Beatrice," the eldest introduced herself, "But you can call me Bee."

It started there and went on for hours. Iden found new friends in the girls, though Beatrice was a bit of a bully and her little sister startled easily. It was better to be with them than alone. Besides, Iden had a hard time making friends her own age, so being accepted at all allowed her to overlook flaws. She followed them all over the playground, not caring that she kept losing sight of Fox and Dana, and forgot her fear of heights in favor of her sense of adventure.

Beatrice was the daughter of a journalist who was at the festival to write a story about it. She recited some history for Iden, and then as dusk fell, invited Iden to sit down – along with a few other kids – to hear the _real_ story of the festival.

In the central tier of the playground, above adult ears, Beatrice told them,

"In this big field, where all the tents and stuff are set up, there used to be a bunch of houses. One night, a man accused a lot of the women who lived here of being witches, and everybody was so scared they set the houses on fire while they were asleep. If anybody made it out of their houses, the other people would drag them to the nearest tree and _hang them_!"

Iden had heard a similar story before from Fox about the witch trials, but she had never expected it to have happened so close to home. She looked out at the festival, picturing burning houses, and then stopped herself. It was a horrible image.

"Now every year they have a festival, right where the witches died, and if you go in the woods you can still hear them screaming."

"You made that up," another girl huffed.

Beatrice shrugged. "You can believe whatever you wanna believe. But if witches scare you, stay away from the woods. Me and Amy are going out to hear them."

The gathered kids exchanged uncertain glances, and Iden looked around to try and find Fox and Dana, but it was dim and they had dressed in plain colors today. She was sure they were nearby, but there was no hope of finding them quickly.

"Are you coming?" Beatrice asked her, poking Iden's shoulder.

Iden hesitated. She was agonizingly curious, but also cautious. She knew Fox and Dana would worry if she went off into the woods. But it seemed, at the time, that hearing the witches scream was a once in a lifetime opportunity. Something took over and she nodded to Beatrice.

"Okay, then, who else?" No one took her up, and Beatrice snorted, "Scared?"

Of course they were scared. It was nearly nighttime and the woods around this area were dense. If she had been a normal kid she might have walked away as well – but Iden had this strange feeling that she would know if something bad awaited her. In the past, her visions had kept her safe, and helped her protect others. Wouldn't they warn her if the woods were dangerous?

She followed Beatrice down the backside of the playground, looking back constantly to try and catch the eye of one or both of her parents. Where were they? She almost wanted them to stop her, and at the same time, she wanted to do something fun for herself.

"Bee, I wanna go back," Amy whined, slowing as the lights of the festival dimmed through the leaves. She took a step backward, crossing her arms.

Beatrice sighed. "Why do you have to be such a baby?"

"Mom said not to go in the woods!"

" _Mom_ isn't here!"

Iden waited for them to decide what they were going to do, looking into the trees with a greater appreciation than the two girls could really understand. She remembered the treehouse, the wicked thing that had tried to take her new cousin Sarah away from her, and shuddered. Fox had a dozen or more stories about scary things in the woods, but that was the only one Iden had seen with her own eyes. It was _her_ story as much as it was his.

Whatever decision the sisters might have made was thrown out when the trees above them shifted. An owl hooted and took flight, striking terror into the three girls.

Iden ran, too spooked to care what direction she was going. She saw flashes of the monstrous birds in the cryptozoology book she had gotten for her birthday – all talons and sharp beaks, lifting kids up above the trees and then dropping them.

She barely made it a hundred feet before she slipped, rolled down a hill, and landed in a bush. It was deathly quiet here, with no sign of the owl or any monster birds, but Iden still sat there, waiting, to make sure nothing sinister had taken notice of her. It was still dusk, light enough to see the trees and the forest floor, and the two shapes not a hundred feet away from her.

Iden sat up, peeking over the bush at the two women in the woods. One was older, troubled looking, and the other was younger, with sharp features. The older one was holding something and jerking it around angrily, while the younger listened to her harsh whispering.

"I know it was you, Mora," the older woman hissed. "Have you been watching me?"

Iden crept around the bush, to a tree, and held onto its trunk. The younger woman was shaking her head. "Please," she said, her voice a little husky, "Stop this now, before it gets out of hand."

"Stop this?" the older woman responded incredulously. "You were the one who started this!"

The older woman stormed off, walking right past Iden without seeing her, and dropped the plate fragments as she went. Iden got the feeling she was in the wrong place at the wrong time, but the woods all looked the same and the sounds of the festival seemed to be coming from every direction. She groped at her pocket, hoping the cellphone they had gotten her for her birthday had signal.

But the woman, Mora, appeared then where the plate fragments had fallen, looking right at Iden.

Iden froze, a little deer caught in a spotlight.

"What are you doing out here?" Mora asked, not unkindly. She looked sad, but harmless. She crouched down to make herself less threatening and motioned up at the hill. "Did you get lost? I can show you the way back to the festival if you want."

Iden had been taught to never talk to strangers, but Fox and Dana did it all the time. It was part of their job. And the woman seemed harmless enough – in fact, Iden got a strange feeling when she looked into her eyes. Mora offered her a hand, and Iden took it, letting the woman lead her through the trees toward the bright lights of the festival.

"Stay out of the woods tonight," Mora said as she released her hand at the edge of the woods.

Iden wondered, "Can you really hear the dead witches scream?"

Mora seemed amused by that. She slipped backward toward the woods again. "No. But you can trip over sleeping bears."

When the woman was gone, Iden stood there for a few minutes looking into the woods, trying to hear anything over the volume of the festival. Beatrice had to be lying about hearing witches. It seemed her once in a lifetime opportunity boiled down to running from an owl.

Dana was waiting for her at the playground border.

"Where were you?" she demanded.

"On the playground," Iden lied.

"Oh, you were, huh? Well, two little girls came running out of the woods screaming about witches, and I just had a feeling you would come out next. What happened?"

Iden squirmed. "We were trying to hear the witches screaming."

"And?"

"And an owl scared us."

Fox walked up, clapping his hands together. "There you are. I told you she was fine."

Dana shot a withering look at Fox, and then went on, "You can't keep wandering off like this. You know better than anyone how dangerous-"

"I know, I know."

"You keep saying that, but then you just walk off again."

Iden looked at the ground, fiddling with her zipper. She hated upsetting Dana, but something inside of her wanted to point out that she had always come out alright.

"I just want you to be safe," Dana said, putting her arm around Iden's shoulders.

"I know. I'm sorry."

She waited a while after that, until the fireworks had finished, to tell them what she saw in the woods. Her story brought more warnings from Dana about strangers, and even a disapproving look from Fox, who thought she could have hidden herself better. But he did seem curious, and that was enough for Iden. She was right to wonder.

On the way to the car, Iden spotted the woman from the woods, Mora, slipping through the crowd. Mora looked right at her, like there were not a dozen people between them, and gave her a sly wink. She melted into the passing bodies, like she had never even been there.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3.**

It came from the center of the festival, a cloud of darkness that erupted toward the sky, blotting out half the stars. Mulder was immediately captivated, pausing to get a clearer look. Others stopped around him, including his partner, who was in the middle of taking an awkward bite from an overstuffed cheeseburger. Iden crashed into her and knocked it from her hands.

"Mulder, what are you…?" Scully started to ask, and then followed his eyes to the cloud. "What is that? Iden, look over there!"

It was beautiful, and it made the hairs on his neck stand straight up. What had started as a purple cloud melted into violet flames, dancing and crackling, casting strange shadows over the festivalgoers. It grew in height, and the heat began to touch them, even at this distance.

"Oh, it's beautiful," Scully murmured, touching his arm. "Is this part of the show?"

"I have no idea…" Mulder took a step forward, and another warm breath washed over him. It was growing too quickly to be some kind of display, and it was too hot to be fake.

And then the screaming started.

Mulder jumped like icy water had been thrown in his face, realizing all at once the danger they were facing. "Get her to the car!" he said, backing up and pushing the girls in the direction of the parking lot. Scully turned immediately and took Iden by the hand, rushing off into the crowd.

His logic spread, and the rest of the crowd began moving backward. Within seconds, the gentle babble became a humming of whispers – and then it became a frantic shouting as family members were separated and the screams from the fire grew louder. Mulder stood his ground for a moment, raking his brain for some explanation to this sudden madness, but it was like nothing he had ever seen. Great violet waves of flame lapping at the sky, smoke pouring into the clouds.

Mulder went toward the flames, fighting through the crowd until it thinned, and all that remained were a few daring, fascinated spectators. He was still over a hundred feet away, but the heat became more intense, almost unbearable.

He took as many pictures as he could with his phone, at the same time fascinated and horrified by the unnatural flame. It was not royal purple, but pale and bright, like an unfolding flower. It was poised in a ring, stabbing outward, but growing mostly in height. Nothing seemed to be burning within it – no buildings, no people, no misplaced fireworks.

It took only minutes for the smoke to swirl back down and make them all start coughing. Mulder covered his face with his shirt and, after one last longing look at the flames, retreated.

Scully was waiting for him at the car. "What was it? Could you see? Was anyone hurt?" She looked anxiously into the crowd. Swanford had no hospital, so a few of its residents were her patients. Some of their neighbors had also come to the festival this year.

He shook his head, coughing, and urged her into the car. "If we can leave safely, go for it."

It was mayhem. It took them over half an hour to get out of the festival parking lot, and then the roads were clogged with onlookers and emergency vehicles. Mulder kept his eyes on the now-distant fire, fascinated by its sudden onset, its appearance, and its origin. But the smoke obscured everything. It was like a thick fog was hanging over the area.

"What do you think that was?" his partner asked when the road home was finally clear.

"Witches!" Iden said immediately.

Scully shot her a quieting look, "Mulder?"

He dared not agree with Iden while Scully was in such a clinical mood, so he took the safer route. "It was unnatural, whatever it was. Purple fire?"

"You can get purple fire by burning salts in a blue flame," Scully countered.

"It could be vandalism," he said.

She pulled into their driveway, still shaking her head. "Who would do that? God, there were kids there. Someone could have been killed."

Mulder glanced at Iden, but the girl seemed less concerned about the flaming festival now that they were home. She leapt from her seat and embraced Frankie, who was pacing around the car. If she had had a vision about this, she would have told them by now.

"I bet they already put it on the news," Scully said. "Vultures."

She was right. Most of the local channels had already picked up the story. Reporters stood in a haze of smoke, holding microphones and talking above the sound of firetrucks. Four people had been sent to the hospital with serious burns, and thirteen more people were admitted with minor cuts and scrapes. Firefighters were not ruling out arson, but the source of the flame was still a mystery.

"Now that the fire is extinguished, fights have been breaking out in the area," the reporter said, as a hovering video of two men brawling appeared in the corner of the screen. "Multiple locals have been accused of setting the fire with the intention of ending the festival early."

Iden was sitting against Scully, with Frankie curled up beside her. She frowned at the newscast. "Do you think there are real witches?"

Scully answered immediately, "Some people can do extraordinary things, but I don't think Halloween witches are real. Despite what _some_ people may think."

Mulder snorted, keeping his eyes on the television.

"And even if there were real witches," Scully went on, kissing Iden on the head, "They would be nature-loving and peaceful. Isn't that right, Mulder?"

"Actually, a lot of lore about witches paints them as murderers and monsters. It's wiccans who are nature-loving."

Scully groaned.

Iden leaned around her and looked at Mulder, "Beatrice said they killed a lot of witches where the festival was. Why would they do that?"

"Most of those people weren't really witches, just strong, outspoken women. Sometimes people are afraid of and hostile toward things they don't understand." He motioned toward the TV. "Look at them out there, blaming each other already. Rural places used to be a haven for unusual people, a place they could stick together to face a cold world that would rather try to exterminate them than understand them." He shook his head again.

Scully put her hand on his knee, and whether it was approval or a sign that he should stop talking, it did the trick and silenced him. She sent Iden to the bath, to wash off the smell of smoke, and then tucked her into bed. Mulder stayed where he was, one hand drumming on Frankie's ribs. Scully was right about being able to make purple flames, but to what end? Why would someone sabotage the festival on its last night? If they wanted to stop it, they should have done it on its first morning, or before it even started. If they were aiming to hurt people, they could have done a lot better than four burn victims in a crowd that dense.

So why did it happen? Who did it? And, most importantly, was it some kind of magic?


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4.**

Iden was looking down a long dark hallway. It swirled with gray fog, obscuring her view of the woman standing at the other end. Iden was sure she would recognize her, if the fog would just clear, but not matter how she squinted there was no way to see through. She also knew it was important to see her, as important as the grave warnings her visions gave her. Something terrible was going to happen.

But the woman vanished before she could get a better look at her, like she always did, and suddenly the hallway was an abandoned factory. Iden was running down a long corridor with Deloris sprinting after her. And then she was dangling over a balcony, suspended by one strong, cruel hand, suddenly remembering that she had never said goodbye to Frankie.

Her nightmare ended, as if always did, when Deloris dropped her. Iden woke with a start, sitting up in bed and mopping the sweat from her face. Frankie gave a concerned whimper. It was the middle of the night, warm and quiet, but her heart raced.

"Just a nightmare," she said, half to herself and half to the dog, and climbed out of bed. She always went outside whenever bad dreams woke her, finding solace in the stars.

It was a clear night, but the moon was only a sliver. Frankie trotted around in the grass, stretching and sniffing, while Iden tried to pick out the constellations Fox had taught her. Nothing looked familiar, or she was just too tired to think straight. Either way, the sky calmed her. Now that she was awake, she was safe to think about who the woman in the hall was. Her mother, the mother she could barely remember. She had been so young when her mother killed herself – or had she? Was it really Deloris, the alien posing as her sister, who had done it? Was she even really dead? Had she even existed in the first place? Iden had been painfully uncertain about all of it since she lost her sister. She was too afraid to ask Fox and Dana about it, worried they would think she was unhappy or ungrateful. That was the last thing she ever wanted.

"What did she look like?" Iden asked Frankie, who only gazed at her, not understanding.

Something stirred it the trees, and the hairs on the back of Iden's neck stood up. She stared hard into the darkness, way across the yard, trying to pick out the source of the sound. If Frankie would have had ears, they would've perked up. Her whole body was tensed with anticipation.

It was only a cat, black as the surrounding shadow, with glinting eyes. Iden relaxed, but her companion stayed tense, prepared to give chase.

Iden was busy watching the cat when the door creaked behind her.

She whipped around, and Frankie took off up the front steps, barking out a deep warning to the sound. Iden walked after her, not wanting to be left in the dark, but also unwilling to run into an intruder. She crept up the stairs, and peaked around the door.

From the mantle to the hall, a glistening trail of wet, human footprints lay in a perfect line. It was almost artistic, the way the water sat suspended, undisturbed by the dog thundering through.

Fox and Dana were up in just a few moments, both armed, and Iden was being shoved into their room. She tried to object, but Dana put her finger to her lips to silence her, whispering, "Stay by the door and stay quiet."

Iden did as she was told, standing with her ear pressed to the door. Her parents scoured the house, passing whispers of 'clear' to one another, and making Iden wonder who or _what_ they expected to come into the house in the middle of the night. Frankie paced back and forth as well, giving short whines and barks, scratching at the floor.

She attributed their reaction to the way Frankie was acting. She never barked without reason. She was a smart dog and she was acting like they were under attack.

But what did she see that they didn't?

Iden went to the window, peeking outside, wondering if whoever had come in and left those footprints had gone out into the woods. She was only see a little shape dodging around in the grass – the black cat from before. It ventured closer as she watched, its eyes glinting, and for a moment Iden could have sworn it looked right at her.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5.**

It was a quiet morning in the Wayfield Police Department. She was the only one there aside from the receptionist and her least favorite of the deputies, Nathan Pitcher. If there had been anyone else in the station – anyone at all – she would have talked to them instead.

"Did you see anything when you checked the house?"

"No, but there was someone there. We found wet footprints leading inside."

Pitcher sighed, and then yawned, taking a lazy sip of his coffee. "Was anything missing?"

"No."

"You say Iden was outside. Could she have made the prints?"

He was using the tone of someone talking down to a scared child, and it was really starting to get on her nerves. She hid her impatience well. "I told you, they were adult footprints."

"Does Mulder think it has something to do with crab people?"

Scully scowled, looking Officer Pitcher up and down. "Whatever your problem is with Mulder, it has nothing to do with this. Someone was in our house last night and they could have hurt Iden. Are you going to do your job or keep making lame jabs at Mulder?"

He cleared his throat at that, looking away from her eyes. "I'm doing my best to be serious here, but you have to see how silly this all sounds."

She glared at him.

"Fine, fine. Start again from the beginning."

Before she could say anything, the station door opened and Hector arrived. He was slouching, holding a cup of coffee and wearing a thick winter jacket. He spotted them and made his way sluggishly to the desk, smiling at Scully.

"What brings you to my neck of the woods, Dana?"

She glanced at Pitcher, who looked a little regretful now that his boss was here. "We had an intruder in our house last night and your officer seems to think it's a laughing matter."

Hector was a good friend of hers. She had been there to help him deal with his kids after the death of his wife. Pitcher, on the other hand, disliked Mulder for his eccentric personality. Hector was well aware of their differences of opinion. He glared at his deputy as he said, "Dana, come over to my desk and we can talk. Nathan, you can throw that report out, and since you got your jollies out nice and early this morning you can start cataloguing the evidence from that vandalism case."

Scully recounted the story again for Hector, sitting with him at his polished desk in the far corner. She trusted him, so she gave more personal details, like how it was normal for Iden to go out to see the stars late at night. He printed out her pictures of the footprints and kept asking if Iden was alright. He even invited them all to squish into his house if they felt unsafe.

"I think Mulder and I can manage."

"You might want to tell Iden to stay inside for a few nights, until we sort this out."

"Way ahead of you."

Hector laid the freshly printed picture between them. It was a footprint, adult-sized, made completely of water. From the shape, Scully would guess it came from a woman.

"Getting a usable print out of water is impossible."

She nodded, "I know. I dusted the rest of the hall last night, after the footprints faded, but it was pointless. When they dried we tried to pull something up – no luck."

"If we find anything that matches this, I'll let you know." He took another long, thoughtful look at the photo, and then stowed it in a fresh folder. "You know, today is my day off. I got called in after what happened at the festival."

In the chaos of the night Scully had almost forgotten the fire.

"Did they manage to get it under control?"

"Yeah, yeah, a while ago. But there was something else this morning – a woman was found badly beaten in the fairgrounds. Swanford police called to have us out there, just to help out, and my officers need a supervisory element." He gestured to himself, "So here I am."

Scully frowned at this news. "How much can go wrong at one festival?"

He shrugged, finished the rest of his coffee in one scalding gulp. "Do you wanna come along? I'm sure you could offer some insight after all your time in the FBI."

Scully snorted. "You know I put all that behind me."

"Yeah, well, you _are_ a doctor, and this poor woman had her face slashed, three ribs broken… bruising on her torso…"

"Hector, are you trying to tempt me with the gory details?"

"I would never." He stood up, donning his coat. "I just have a long morning ahead of me and I would appreciate the company – and the extra eye. It sounds like this is going to be complicated."

"Why?"

"Well, the sheriff mentioned the scene is… unusual."

"Unusual how?"

Hector smiled, "You're welcome to come along and see for yourself."

Scully did her best to walk away, but Iden was in school and her years as an investigator made her feel like helping find justice for this woman was her duty. Besides, after the fire that consumed the festival she would love to get another look at the area.

She ended up in the car with Hector, speeding down the highway, chatting with him between sips of fresh black coffee. He had his own ideas about the fire at the festival – vandals. He thought some activist group, or just some local kids, wanted to ruin the fun, and that the woman getting beaten might have been a coincidence. Scully suggested that she had witnessed the arsons in action and that they had tried to get rid of her. Hector eventually admitted that he had no idea why the scene would be 'unusual,' or than being the site of that strange fire.

"Maybe they were just referring to the burned ground," Scully offered.

"No, no. He said something like… what did he say? He said it was impossible."

"What was impossible? Her survival?"

"No, the scene. He said, 'it looks impossible.'"

Scully pondered that while she flicked through her contacts. "I better tell Mulder where I am."

He picked up with a cheery tone, "House of mysteries, Fox Mulder speaking."

Scully laughed, "I told you to stop answering like that. What if it was one of my patients calling?"

"Hello to you, too."

She rolled her eyes. "I'm going to Swanford with Hector. Apparently, a woman was found badly beaten at the festival this morning."

"Wow, that place just can't catch a break."

"I know."

"Hey, did you break a plate before you left?"

"No, why?"

"I just found one in the cabinet. Must have been Iden. Hey, have fun out there."

"I'm going to a crime scene, Mulder, not a rave."

"Who says those are mutually exclusive?"


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6.**

Mulder had been over it a hundred times. Something about this was familiar. He stood in the hallway, looking at the ground where the odd footprints had been, and waited for the answers to come to him. Frankie laid at his feet, birds sung outside, and the sun rose slowly into the morning, but he got nowhere.

His phone rang for the third time at ten, and he answered without looking.

"Hello?"

"Stop ignoring my calls."

Skinner sounded the same as he had the last three times he called Mulder that month, and the month before – exhausted, frustrated, and irritable.

"Easy solution to that is for you to stop calling me."

"I want you in on this, Mulder. How many times are you gonna make me ask?"

"Until you get tired of it, I guess." Mulder stepped into his office, giving the paper-plastered walls a passing glance before settling into his computer chair. Frankie trudged in behind him and laid dutifully in front of the heat vent. His desktop had three tabs open, two of cryptozoology websites his friend Gene Foster had recommended, and one a search tab with the keywords 'witch,' 'footprints,' and 'water,' typed into it.

Skinner grunted, and seemed to be sitting down himself. "Will you at least let me run the details by you, to see if you have any theories?"

"If I say no, will you stop calling?"

"No."

"Okay then. Walk me through it."

"Peter Winslow, an outstanding agent in the white-collar crimes unit here in Langley, went missing from his locked apartment last month. We found three slashes on the wall – what appear to be claw marks of some kind – and an imprint."

"When you say imprint, you mean…?"

"Like a shadow, a human shadow."

Mulder pictured it, a massive claw mark over a human shaped shadow. His mind went immediately to the victims of nuclear blasts, the way their bodies vaporized and left impressions of their shape on the ground. It was certainly a case he wanted to consider, a crime scene he wanted to visit, but there was no way he could take Skinner up on his offer.

He pitched it again, tirelessly. "I could give you temporary reinstatement for this case. Once we find the agent, you can go back to your isolation."

"Isolation," Mulder snorted. "I have a family here, a life."

"How much of that quiet life can you take, Mulder?"

"Let me tell you how I see this going. You reinstate me for this one case, and then another one comes up that you insist only I can see through – maybe Scully can, too. So we start working together again, under the brand new leadership at the FBI. One case after another we go deeper, until we end up in the same place again, until we end up where we almost lost our lives, each other… where we lost our son."

Skinner was silent for once.

"I hope you find Peter Winslow, I really do. But you have to accept that I'm never coming back."

For a long time, there was just the gentle buzzing of the heater between them.

"You should look into some folk stories, see if you can find anything similar there," Mulder said at last. "I'll text you the number of a biologist I know, Gene Foster. You can ask him about the claw marks. But if he comes through for you, you owe me a finder's fee."

Skinner snorted, "In your dreams, Mulder."

Mulder set his phone on the desk, staring blankly at his computer screen until he felt Frankie staring at him. He looked into her judging eyes. "Hey, I'm right about this. You _know_ that. It never ends with those people."

Frankie tipped her head, blinked, and looked at the window instead.

He was prepared to argue with the dog and prove he was right about this, but his phone rang and saved her from his superior reasoning. He gave her a 'next time' look and answered.

"House of Pie, may I take your order?"

Scully snorted, "Does that mean you're baking?"

"Yeah, just trying out this new toy oven we got Iden last year."

"I need you to put some pants on and go over to the Whitehead house. Hector just got off the phone with them – there was a break-in, similar to ours."

Mulder looked down at his underwear and frowned, "How did you know I wasn't wearing pants?" He spun around in his chair, glancing at the clock. "I have to eat lunch with Iden first."

"No hurry. I just want to make sure they're okay… and I want you to see if you can find anything that might tell us who was in our house last night."

"I will. You can count on it."

He was thinking about the Whiteheads the whole way to the school, wondering what he might learn about his own intruders. Iden was already in the lunchroom when he arrived, and she got a big stupid grin on her face when he sank down beside her.

"Hey, kid. Get me anything?" He tried to pick a tater tot off of her plate.

Iden slapped his hand. "No!"

"Fine. See if I make you a plate tonight."

She smiled at him, leaning into his side. "Did you find out who broke in?"

"No. Did you pass your math test?"

"Yes."

"Good. One of us has to be good at math."

"Dana is good at math."

"Dana is good at everything." Mulder reached behind her back, tapped her shoulder, and when she was distracted, he stole a tater tot. He spoke with his mouth full. "Did you sleep last night?"

"Sort of. Frankie kept waking me up, barking at that stupid cat."

"What cat?"

Iden shrugged, pushing her fork around. "Just a cat that was in the yard." She was quiet for a little while, and then, "I need you to tell me the truth – are witches real?"

He took another tater tot, nodding. "As far as I know."

"Do you think that…?" Iden looked around, checking that no one was close enough to overhear her. "Do you think that a witch was in our house last night?"

Mulder shook his head immediately. "Breaking and entering is a little below witches."

"Oh." She twiddled her thumbs. "Frankie was barking, but… I didn't sleep because of my dreams."

"More nightmares?"

"I keep having the same one every night." She yawned, right on cue. "I see my mom, and then Deloris is chasing after me in the factory."

"Sometimes nightmares are just… nightmares."

"I know. But I wish they would stop."

"If you get scared you know you can always come to our room."

She thought a moment, and then asked, "Did anybody die in the fire?"

"No." He hoped that was true, but he really had no idea. "But a woman was hurt this morning. Dana is headed out there right now to look into it."

He spent the lunch period with her, giving her some random ghoul stories to get her mind off of her nightmares. But he noticed she was mostly alone over here, apart from any other kids her age. Was this an everyday thing? Had she made any friends at all?

Mulder was still caught up on that when he made it to the Whitehead house. Parker was out on the porch talking to none other than Nathan Pitcher.

Pitcher groaned when Mulder got out of his car. " _Really_? Why are you here?"

"I happen to be a friend of the family," Mulder said, going right up the front steps and walking inside like he had been invited. He'd never been to this house before. It was Scully who was friends with the Whiteheads. But he wasn't going to give Pitcher a chance to turn him away.

Katie was at the kitchen table, and she smiled when she saw him. "Hi."

"Hi," he responded, smiling. "I heard you guys had a little break-in."

She told him the story, a story that mimicked every element of what happened at his own house the night before, right down to the wet footprints and the laughter. Every supernatural bell was ringing in his head. But the questions remained – what had done this? Why were they targeted?

Scully was not going to like his assessment, but there was denying something strange was going on.


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7.**

Scully had been here recently, but it had looked a lot different. She noticed the change as she stepped out of the car. Something was different about the air. It felt thick, like they were standing in an invisible mist, and it made the hairs on her arms stand up. The sky was covered by a solid layer of thin clouds, darkening the massive, empty field that had hosted a festival only hours ago. Now the grass was charred, the ground upturned and gashed by fire in some places. But there was no smoky smell – only a sharp, repulsive odor like burning plastic.

"Looks like they finally put it out," Hector commented, pointing to the far side of the field where a dozen or more firetrucks surrounded a smoking heap. "Or contained it, at least."

She watched them swarm like so many ants in the distance, wondering if they would let her take a closer look at that pile. "It must have been some fire."

"We get them sometimes, mostly in the mountains."

"No, I mean, look at this." Scully stopped, running her shoe over one of the scars in the ground. "It almost looks like the fire was directed downward here."

"Directed?"

Scully shook that thought off. "We were meeting someone, right?"

The local police had congregated on the eastern side of the field, near the woods, not far from the playground that Iden had been on the night before – it was untouched by the fire. She was introduced to a few officers, and then the sheriff, Arthur Michaels. He was the lumberjack type, wearing an old, wooly plaid shirt and stained jeans.

"Thanks for coming out, Hector," Michaels said, giving Hector another firm handshake. "I know your county is more used to this sort of… thing."

Scully and Hector exchanged a glance. "What sort of thing?" she asked.

"Well, this." Michaels led them to the edge of the woods and motioned to an area cordoned off by dinky orange traffic cones. "We were hoping you had seen something like this before."

In the grass, there was a perfect human outline. Her arms were splayed out, each finger protecting the underlying grass from the fire. It was perfect enough to seem unreal.

Scully stepped forward, to the edge of the cones, and crouched down to get a better look.

"No burns on her," Michaels supplied.

Scully reached out, touching the unburned grass delicately with her fingertips. "No burns?"

"No. One of the staffers found her out here this morning, badly beaten and confused, just wandering around. We found this later."

"Maybe she just laid here and left this shape when the soot was falling," Hector suggested.

"No." Scully ran her fingers over it again, convincing herself. "No, the grass around the outline is burnt. The fire was definitely here at the same time as she was. But an entire half of her body should be burned – no burns at all?"

"No, ma'am." Michaels came to crouch with her. "You seen something like this before?"

"I'm sorry. No."

He frowned down at the outline, scratching his head. "Victim is Mora Greenwich, a local."

Scully felt a jolt. She had heard that name just last night, when Iden was telling her story about the strange woman she met in the woods. She said Mora had been arguing with someone, and that the woman had led her safely back to the festival.

"In that case, I think I have a witness for you."

She explained the story from the night before and piqued the interest of her companions.

"What are the odds, huh?" Michaels blew out a heavy breath, rising to his full height. "Your girl running into her a few hours before she gets her lights knocked out?"

Scully knew the odds were astronomical, but she also knew that Iden was not a normal girl. She was something else, something magical, and she had a tendency to gravitate toward the unusual. It was a trait that fascinated Mulder, but that terrified Scully. She had been in the woods with someone who had beaten another person nearly to death.

"What do you think of this?" Hector asked her.

Scully was baffled. "It looks impossible." She circled the outline again, to commit it to memory, and then said, "But forgetting that, a crime was committed here."

"I guess we need to talk to Iden then."


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8.**

"She was pretty, and nice… and she said there were bears in the woods."

Hector smiled patiently as Iden went on and on about her encounter with the beaten woman, Mora, on the night of the festival. His companion, Arthur Michaels, the sheriff from Swanford County, was less patient. He rubbed his forehead, shifted in his chair, and even groaned once when Iden went off on a tangent about how if Mora had not found her, she would have fought a hundred bears and found her own way back to the festival.

Scully was not in the room because Iden was legally her daughter, but she was allowed to stand in the doorway and watch the interview. Iden looked very small in the interrogation chair, and very out of place. She was a pretty little girl with curly black hair and skin the color of mahogany – and a smile that could win anyone over. But beneath that innocent exterior, Scully knew that Iden was clever. She was taking these officers for a ride, giving them tidbits of valuable information within a lot of filler. Mulder had perfected that talent.

"Can you describe the woman you saw _talking_ to Mora?"

Iden thought a moment, and swung her legs back and forth. "She was shorter… er, her hair was dark. Probably brown. No, like probably black."

"What were they talking about?"

"She was mad at Mora for something… she said she _knew_ she did… something."

"Did she say what Mora did?"

"No." Iden frowned. "But she was nice, like I said. I think that other lady was crazy."

Hector smiled. "Is there anything else you can remember?"

"Um, she was holding a plate."

"Mora or the other woman?"

"The other woman."

The Swanford sheriff cut in. "A plate? Like a dinner plate?"

"Yeah. It was broken."

Scully felt a jolt. She had heard something about a broken plate already today. Mulder had asked her if she broke a plate on the phone. Strange. It was silly to think those two things were related, but in their line of work coincidences were rare.

"Did she say anything about the plate?"

"No. But I think that was what she thought Mora did."

If there was a connection, and if this woman was right in accusing Mora of breaking the plate, did that mean Mora had been the one to break into their house? Had she also broken in to the Whitehead house? How was that possible, if she had been lying in that field all night?

Scully turned, sending a text to Mulder. _Keep that plate. I want to see it_.

"Is there anything else you want to tell us, Iden?"

She waited, hoping Mulder would be near his phone, but the silence distracted her. She looked up and found the two officers staring at Iden, who was looking out into space. Her eyes were wide, fixated on the far wall, and she didn't seem to be breathing.

Scully rushed toward her, hitting her knees by the chair just as the girl convulsed and fell out of it. She writhed about for six seconds – Scully counted every time – and then went still. Her eyes popped open like she had been sleeping. She looked up at Scully and smiled.

Hector and the Swanford sheriff left their seats, almost in slow motion, and gathered around her. "Is she alright? What was that? Should I call an ambulance?"

"No, no. She has epilepsy. Give me space."

Scully and Mulder had devised the perfect cover for the sometimes overwhelming visions their daughter experienced. She would lock up and convulse, a motion nearly identical to a seizure. When it happened in school, the nurse gave her a little candy pill in a prescription bottle and called one of them to let them know. When it happened in public, Scully was usually there to lie for her.

Hector never believed her, but he went along with it. He must have seen too much when they were up against Deloris, or he suspected something after Scully showed up just in time to save Katie Whitehead from her stalker. He gave her a curious look, and backed off.

"I think she told you everything she knows," Scully said, pulling Iden to her feet and shuffling her out of the room. "If you need to talk to her again, call me."

"Do you need a ride home?" Hector wondered.

"No, no. You need to be here. I can call Mulder to pick us up."

Scully and Iden sat together in the lobby. It was a little chilly – an icy February in Virginia – but Iden was running hot. She shrugged off her jacket and toyed with Scully's hand.

"What did you see?" Scully asked under her breath.

Iden frowned, thinking. "I saw a tree."

"Just a tree?"

"It was… the widow tree."

"A willow tree?"

"No. _Widow_." Iden looked up to where the secretary was sitting. She was paying them no mind. "And I saw a cemetery."

"Do you know what it was called?"

"No. Sorry." Iden lifted Scully's arm and looped it around herself, snuggling in close. "Do you think Mora will be okay?"

"I don't know. I hope so." Scully kissed the top of her head.

"I was lying earlier. I was gonna call you if she didn't find me in the woods."

Scully smiled. "That's okay. You can always call me when you need me."

"Promise you won't tell anyone… but I think Mora is a witch."

Scully said nothing. She could only hope that Iden was wrong, and that this case was just the usual sort of odd. When the supernatural was involved, things tended to go downhill fast.

She was just listening to Mulder too much.

Right?

XxX

Mulder watched as his partner ran her fingers over the broken plate. She seemed dangerously curious about it, which worried him. She had filled him in on the case, on what Iden saw in the woods, on the ride home – and the thought that this could be supernatural was obviously getting to her. "It was probably just a coincidence," he said. "You know, the random kind."

"You sound so convinced," she said, not looking up from the plate.

Iden pushed her way between them, examining the plate. "It kind of broke in the same way."

Scully cleared her throat and put the plate back on the counter. "Iden had a vision at the station. She saw a tree, and a cemetery."

Iden put her hand on his arm. "A _widow_ tree. Just like the festival."

"The Widow Tree Witching Festival," Mulder said, when Scully gave him a strange look. "The Widow Tree is a big part of local folklore. It's the reason they hold the festival here every year, the reason we get a lot more weirdos than other small towns."

"What does it mean?" Iden demanded.

Mulder glanced at Scully, wondering if this was a topic she wished he would steer clear of around the kid. But it was important now, and there was no avoiding it.

"It happened in 1945. Wayfield was isolated, mostly apart from the rest of the state – from the rest of the world. Small towns had a way of getting themselves worked up, and they were worked up about witchcraft. Some people thought that the pagan way of life was bringing bad weather, killing the crops, making the kids sick. It hit its boiling point one night, and the townspeople rounded up a dozen or so women and accused them of witchcraft."

Iden was captivated, like she always was when he told her a story, but she was more invested in this one. Scully watched him with her arms crossed, curious, but cautious.

"They were all hanged in the same tree, their bodies left there for weeks."

"Were they really witches?" Iden breathed.

"No. It was revealed later on that they were just beautiful widows of the war. Some of the men in town – married men – were turned down when they tried to seduce the widows, and so they got together and accused them of witchcraft, to end the temptation. Hence the name of the tree."

"How could that possibly be related with what happened to Mora?" Scully asked.

"I don't know. But she must have seen it for a reason."

Iden bounced around. "What about the cemetery? Did they bury them somewhere?"

"No. Like I said, they left them in the tree."

"We should go there!" Iden declared, grabbing her coat from the chair and stuffing her arms into it. "Maybe I can have another vision!"

"Whoa, no way." Scully stopped her, tugging her jacket off.

Mulder added, against his better judgement, "I think she's right."

"No. We're not taking a nine-year-old to the site of a mass murder!"

"I'm ten now!"

"It might help the police, if she sees something relevant to the case."

"Mulder, no."

"I want to help," Iden snatched her coat back – the first and only act of defiance he had ever seen between her and Scully. "Mora was nice to me, and maybe I can see who hurt her."

Scully looked stricken. "You see the future, not the past."

"You don't know that! Maybe I see both!"

"Iden, no. That's final."

The girl was practically in tears. "Fine. I'll just wait until you fall asleep and sneak out!"

Scully groaned, and for a moment Mulder thought he might have to intervene. But his partner crouched down in front of Iden and spoke to her softly, in a voice that made him experience an intense wave of affection. "I can see this means a lot to you. I know you want to help."

Iden nodded, tears finally forming and rolling down her cheeks.

"Okay. Okay, we can go." Scully wrapped her in a hug, rocking her gently back and forth, a little redness around the edges of those beautiful blue eyes. "I just want you to be safe. You know that."

Mulder suddenly felt out of place in their moment. He stepped out of the kitchen, into the hall, and smiled to himself. He was still caught up in that warm, bubbly feeling when he noticed something glinting on the floor.

He could have sworn he wiped those footprints up.


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9.**

Iden tried to imagine women dangling by their wrists from the branches of a magnificent oak tree. She pictured it in the summer, its leaves a vibrant green, towering over an otherwise bare field, and with a crowd surrounding it, chanting, holding torches and pitchforks, while the women within the tree screamed and wiggled around. It would have been at night, if the story was true, but Iden saw it during the day. She saw all the faces and tried to understand them.

"Why did they do it?" she asked again, as she made slow circles around the base of the tree.

He hesitated, probably thinking of a way to explain it to a kid like her. Iden really wanted the adult answer, but she knew Fox would dial down the horror while Dana was there.

"Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent," he said, mostly to himself. And then he noticed the girls looked at him oddly, so he added, "Because they wanted something they could never have."

Iden wanted things she could never have – her mother to be alive, her sister to be alive – but she would never do something like this to get them.

"Why did everyone else help them?"

"Sometimes people do bad things when they're afraid," Dana said. She was following Iden around the tree, gazing up at its branches, maybe picturing the same horrible scene. "It was a different world back then, and superstition was dangerous."

"We were coming off a major war," Fox added. "No one knew what might happen next."

"Did they go to jail?"

"No."

Iden had figured as much. Whenever he told her horrible stories from the past, it never ended with justice for the victims – whether humans or monsters or aliens were the bad guys. Iden thought the world was severely short on justice.

"Did they ever apologize?"

Fox had his arms crossed. He was looking at the base of the tree instead of the branches. Someone had put a bronze plaque there. "Maybe. We'll never know."

She made it back around to him and stood by his side, mimicking his posture, and read the plaque aloud. "In this tree, in the dark year of 1945-"

Dana snorted.

"-citizens wrongly accused of witchcraft were hanged until dead."

"Is that all it says?" Dana wondered.

"No. It has a lot of names, and a prayer at the end."

Fox stepped closer, reading the names in a low murmur, a dark look coming over his face. He did the strangest thing then – he crouched down and ran his fingers over the engraved letters, and then finally looked up at the tree. His eyes widened and darted around, branch to branch, and then he shut them tight and returned his face to the plaque. Iden looked at Dana to make sure that she had really seen this bizarre reaction, but Dana was looking down the hill.

"Is that the cemetery you saw?" Dana asked.

Iden looked up, following a rolling field down to the lip of a crumbling stone wall with rows of mossy gravestones behind it. When her eyes fell upon the stones, standing like so many soldiers on a forgotten battlefield, a chill went down her spine.

"I think so…" she said. "Can we go?"

Dana finally saw Fox crouching there, looking stricken. "You okay?"

His eyes popped open and he nodded. "Huh? Yeah. Fine. We should go check it out."

"Mulder, what-?"

"Nothing," he said quickly. He stood, his eyes down, and took Iden by the shoulder. "Come on."

Iden ran out ahead, sprinting down the hill, driven by a kind of urgency she had only felt a few times in her life. It was the adrenaline of a vision, the promise of answers, the knowledge that something strange was going on.

She was halfway down when she felt something strike her.

It was like she had run through a wall of water. Suddenly it was not daytime, but night. It was pouring rain. Iden was in another field somewhere far away, in the middle of a storm, her sneakers in swampy ground, her hair getting plastered to her face.

She was not alone.

A boy about her age ran past her, crying, with several boys chasing him. He tripped and the boys converged, kicking him and yelling, their words drowned out by the rain.

Iden ran toward them, "Leave him alone!"

The boy looked up at her, his eyes wide with surprise.

But suddenly the vision ended and she was back in a sunny, chilly field in Virginia, reaching out to nothing, talking to no one.

It was a jarring transition that left her breathless. She kept running, hoping the vision would come back and she could help the boy. But the wall of the cemetery came up too soon, and the tingling of rain on her skin was nothing but a memory.

Iden put her hands on the bricks, warm and rough. Her stomach churned. She knew in her heart that the vision had nothing to do with the case. It felt private. It felt real.

Her parents reached her and Fox stepped over the wall.

"Can we go home?" Iden asked.

Fox frowned. "You don't want to take a look around?"

"No." Iden was inexplicably upset. Her stomach was not the only thing churning – she felt like she could have cried, or laughed, or screamed. She drifted closer to Dana and hugged her waist. "Can we go back now?"

Dana took her hand, "Of course."


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10.**

"He was crying, and I think those boys were gonna hurt him."

Sarah spoke on the other line, her voice muffled because she was trying to keep her dad from hearing her. "You should tell your parents."

Her cousin had gone missing last Christmas, taken by a ghost inside an old treehouse, and Iden had been the one to rescue her. She had kept in touch ever since, even though Sarah lived in New York and Iden lived in Virginia. Dana promised one day they would go and visit.

"I know… but I think I'm not supposed to."

"Why?"

"I don't know. It just feels like this is… this is different."

"Could you tell where he was?"

"No. But it could be happening right now. It was dark outside, and raining."

Sarah was quiet for a moment. "Maybe if you see him again, you might see where he is, too. And then you could tell your parents."

"Not until this is over – until we find out what happened to Mora."

"Are they still fighting?"

Iden sat up, listening intently for a moment. She could just make out harsh whispered voices in the other room. "Yeah." She laid back down, putting her arm around Frankie. "I think he's alone, like me. I think I saw him for a reason."

"I wish I was closer. I could help you."

"Me too."

Iden heard a rustle outside and sat up again, her skin prickling. Frankie stirred and wiggled into her spot in the bed, going right back to snoring.

"I'll call you back," Iden said to Sarah, hanging up before her cousin could respond.

She crawled to the foot of the bed and peeked out the window at the dark yard, expecting to see some kind of monster – or a treehouse – lurking in the shadows.

But it was just a cat.

Iden unlatched the window and leaned out, watching a sleek black cat trot toward her from the trees. It was the same cat she had seen before, she was sure of it.

"Here. Come here." Iden leaned further, holding her hand out. "Here, kitty."

It was coming straight for her, its eyes glinting in the light pouring out from her bedroom. It might have seemed menacing if not for the strange instinct alive inside Iden. She thought she shouldn't be afraid, so she wasn't.

It came ever closer, slowing, its eyes locked into hers.

And then Frankie whined in her sleep and the cat turned and sprinted back into the woods.


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter 11.**

Mulder woke to the peculiar sound of drumming, like someone was simply tapping their hands along a desk. It pervaded his mind, drowned out his dreams, and drove him upright in bed. His bedroom was dark and silent, and his sleeping partner gave no sign that she heard the sound. It was only in his head, and somehow, he knew it.

It was chilly in the house and Mulder was only wearing pajama pants. He ignored the robe draped over the chair and walked right past the thermostat, failing to notice the goosebumps rising on his bare shoulders. He stepped in water in the hall and thought nothing of it.

He drifted into the kitchen, thoughtless.

"Hey, big guy."

Mulder did not jump, or respond, or even look up at the three ghosts who appeared in his kitchen. He knew their names, knew their story, and usually grew weary when they showed up in his life, but this time it was different. It mattered less than the drumming.

He approached the sink and grasped the metal on either side, looking out over the lawn. He saw a black cat lying in a pool of moonlight, and nothing else.

"Hey, easy there," Frohike said. He was leaning against the counter, dead for years, but looking more spooked than he ever had in life.

Mulder finally managed a thought louder than the drumming.

Ghosts could not hurt, could not die. So why was he afraid?

Mulder experienced a precious moment of clarity, and his sharp mind grasped at it. "What are you guys doing here?" He looked at the lawn, at the clock on the wall, "What am I doing here?"

"Go back to bed," Byers said.

Mulder stared at the ghost, at his former friend, "I can't."

It was the drumming. It was getting stronger, louder. Mulder made his way out the back door, shut it behind him, and locked it, striding across the lawn with great purpose.

He was nearly to the woods when something sharp struck his leg.

Mulder staggered, struck with clarity again, and found a black cat attached to his leg. It was biting into his calf and growling. He shook it off and fell backward, clapping his hand over a fresh set of puncture wounds. The cat stalked nearby, hissing and spitting, leering at him with green eyes like little emeralds, and fresh blood on its teeth.

He wondered if the cat had attacked him to get him to stop following the drums – but that thought faded with everything else. Mulder got up again and went on toward the forest, ignoring it when the cat attacked a second time. He forgot about it, forgot about the house behind him with the people he loved inside.

Mulder was not alone for long. He was joined by Parker Whitehead, who walked along his left side, and then by Gary Cleary, another neighbor, who joined at his right.

He didn't notice as the line grew longer on either side – as the men of his town all wandered together through the forest on this cold, quiet night, in each of their minds the same enchanting drumming that had lured him out of bed.


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter 12.**

Iden shut her eyes and clutched the tattered old badge. She saw nothing, felt nothing, no matter how hard she strained. Her visions evaded her.

His face, much younger than it was now, stared out at her from the badge. Iden had little faith in finding him with something he had abandoned so long ago, but it was the only thing she could find in her backpack that belonged to him. She brought it to school one day for show and tell. Her backpack was the only thing she had time to grab when Dana dragged her out of the house that morning. It was barely dawn when Dana dropped her off with Nancy, promising to call if she knew anything more – and leaving Iden with a terrible piece of information.

Fox was missing, along with all the other men in town.

She was trying her best to be useful. Nancy had been storming around the house all morning, keeping her kids close. Her oldest son had gone missing as well. She was on and off of the phone with her husband, who was out of town on business, and she never seemed to sit down for more than a few seconds. Iden hated to see anyone so worried, and she worried about Fox herself, and wondered what Dana was doing – so she tried her hardest to have a vision.

She was holding the badge to her forehead when Nancy rushed back into the kitchen with the phone. Nancy barely noticed her strange behavior. She was talking quietly, in an intense tone, "Is that really why you're going to the hospital? Be honest with me, please."

Iden sat up. "Is that Dana?"

Nancy gave her a 'shush' motion and went on. "Okay. Okay. If you get any news… Yes, I have her here. Did you want to…? Okay. No, I understand. Okay. Good luck."

She hung up, setting the phone on the counter and bracing her hands there, like she was afraid she was going to fall down. Iden went to her side, waiting eagerly for news. "Was that Dana?"

"Dana is busy right now," Nancy said hastily, but not unkindly. Her mind was obviously somewhere else. "She said she'll call when she knows something."

"But she _did_ call. Does she know something? Is she at the hospital? Is someone hurt? Is it Fox?"

"Iden, calm down." Nancy pulled Iden into a mom hug, rubbing her back. "No one is hurt. Dana is just going to the hospital to follow up on a lead. We still don't know…"

Iden looked up and found Nancy struggling for words. Now it was her turn to be the comforting one, because there were things she knew that Nancy could never understand. "Don't worry. Dana will find them. She used to be a special agent, you know."

Nancy smiled sadly. "I know. Just hold on for a while, and if she doesn't call back in thirty minutes, we'll call her, okay?"

Iden went reluctantly back to the kitchen table, picking up a crayon and halfheartedly adding eyelashes to the picture she had drawn of Dana. She watched Nancy in her peripheral vision. She went back into the living room and sat beside her two remaining sons, putting her arms around them like she was ready to hold them down if they started to disappear. Iden thought that if she had seen Fox vanishing, she would have held onto him the same way.

But she was tired of waiting. She slipped out the back door and took one of the boys' bikes, starting toward the hospital. If she was going to use her powers, she had to be closer to the action.

Iden had made this ride many times during the summer to go and visit Dana at work, but today the town was different. Some streets were deathly quiet, where there would usually be lawnmowers snarling and kids playing, and lots of people were standing in their driveways, talking in low tones. Iden had never felt that kind of unrest in this small town, and she wondered if this was the way the townspeople had acted before they killed those women at the Widow Tree.

She took her usual route in through a side door at the hospital, waving at anyone she passed and getting a half-hearted wave back. It was only women today, and they all seemed to be in a rush.

Dana was not in her office, or in the cafeteria.

But something else was here.

Iden felt it like a strange tickle at the back of her neck, leading her up one hall, and then down another. None of the adults paid her any mind, all consumed by their own problems.

She stopped at a room at the end of the hall, where a single female officers was sitting. Iden approached, giving the officer a little wave, but the woman stared right past her. Iden started to feel uneasy. She stopped five feet away and waved her hand again, but the officer said nothing, did nothing to indicate that she knew Iden was there.

"She can't see you. Come in."

Iden jumped at a voice coming from inside the room. She looked doubtfully at the officer again and then scampered past her. She found herself face to face with the woman she had seen at the festival that night – Mora.

Mora was trying to sit up. When their eyes met, she smiled, and croaked, "You lost again, kitten?"

Iden was appalled by her appearance. Her face was heavily bruised on one side, the skin sagging and purple, and one of her eyes was almost swollen shut. Her hospital gown hung down one shoulder, showing off a nasty row of stitches leading down across her collar.

"I was looking for my parents," Iden stuttered, staying just inside the doorway.

"Well, your mother just left," Mora said, finally achieving a somewhat upright position and looking harder at Iden. She rubbed a welt on her cheek. "And your dad…"

Iden went straight to her bedside, "Do you know where Fox is?"

"What an odd name." Mora smiled. "And yours, too. Not something you hear every day. But you're not someone you meet every day, either. No. You're something else."

Iden fiddled with her hands. "What does that mean?"

"Have you seen the tree?"

Something cold touched Iden right in the center of her chest. She shivered. "How did you…?"

"You can never go there," Mora said, suddenly intense. She swung her legs around, wincing, so she could lean closer. "Bad things happened there, and only bad things _will_ happen there."

Iden stared at her, unwilling to admit she had already been to the tree.

Mora sat back, groaning as she settled into bed. She said nothing for a few moments, staring out the window like she could see something that Iden could not.

Iden finally piped up, "What happened to Fox?"

"Black magic," Mora responded plainly.

"You mean like…? Evil? Witches?"

"No, not evil. She's not… evil." Mora seemed to struggle for an explanation. "She just… she lost her way. It happens sometimes, to all sorts of people. Grief can do that. We have to understand… we have to see…"

Iden was full of curiosities, and she suddenly wished Fox were there to ask all the right questions. She only had the first things that came to her mind, what she impulsively blurted out.

"But she set the festival on fire, right? She beat you up!"

"Yes. She did. But she thought she was finding justice. I was involved in something… something that ended in a tragic, unavoidable death. She thought… well, she thought I deserved to burn."

Iden looked again at her injuries and pictured that purple fire radiating from the center of the festival. If there was something that could do that, could take all the men from town in the dead of night without anyone hearing them, how were they sitting here talking?

"How did you survive?" Iden whispered.

Mora smiled again, a distant, knowing smile. "I'm fireproof." She reached up again, stroking the welt on her cheek, and Iden realized suddenly it was a burn. She noticed Iden looking and dropped her hand. "She touched me. I let her get too close."

Iden asked a third time, with more resolve, "Do you know where Fox is?"

"How about we make a deal? I'll tell you who set the fire, and you go and tell your mom. I could tell that whatever I said to her earlier was going to go in one ear and out the other, so I said nothing. She is a very passionate woman… just like Charlotte."

"Charlotte," Iden repeated.

"Charlotte Gregor." Mora looked out the window, her jaw set. "You go and tell your mom that name and let me worry about those missing people."


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter 13.**

Opening his eyes was like emerging from a deep pool.

Mulder was lying in the grass, staring at a drop of dew making its way down his outstretched arm. He knew all at once that he was not at home, but in a field somewhere, lying in his pajamas on the cold, wet ground. He could not speak, could barely move, but his mind was clear again. He remembered hearing drums the night before and being driven into the woods, finding his neighbors walking alongside him, and coming into an empty clearing. Beyond that, everything was blank.

He lay there for several minutes, awake, but ineffectual, and listened to his surroundings. It was cold and windy, the birds were singing, a creek was gurgling nearby. Others lay beyond his arm, but he could not lift his head to get a better look.

His senses slowly returned to him, letting him listen to the wind rattle the trees, letting him feel the unpleasant cold on his skin, the ache in his back. He regained movement in his feet and swirled them around, listening as others around him did the same.

Mulder struggled to connect his current predicament with the case they were working. _Flames at the festival. Broken dishes. Footprints made of water. What about the cat?_ His mind jumped to the night before, when the black cat had attacked his leg. Was it trying to stop him? Every tale involving witches also made mention of some kind of animal – the modern ones focusing more on the use of cats as familiars. Scully would say that was impossible.

 _Why did they do it?_

He remembered his conversation with Iden.

 _Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent_ , he heard himself saying. Both girls looked at him like he was insane, because he was letting his inner thoughts out and not answering her question. _Because they wanted something they could never have._ But there was more to it than that. Iden wanted to know if there was justice for what happened at the tree.

He was searching for that thought exactly. It rang like a bell in his head. _Justice_. He was suddenly thinking about it, suddenly obsessed with it. But it was not the women who died that day he was thinking about – it was the people in the caverns at Mammoth Cave, and the children that Deloris had sucked the life out of, and little boy in his treehouse they called the Reaper. But it was not him – not entirely – focused on these thoughts. He felt something else, _someone_ else, lurking in his head. It was a sick feeling, like fingernails sliding down his spine.

He was lying there, obsessing about justice, when he felt the heat touch his body.

It breathed life back into his limbs. He was suddenly free of his invisible prison. He sat straight up, along with dozens of other men who formed a ring about the clearing. He recognized most of them as neighbors and townspeople – and Hector was right beside him.

In the center of the clearing, a purple fire burned, and within the fire stood a woman.

She was beautiful, but her outline was fuzzy. It was almost like two people were standing together, one within the other. One had a sharp, serious face and eyes as black as pitch, and the other had a softer, rounder face and mousy eyes. It was the second woman who took the most from the form, who seemed the most real.

She stepped from the flames, and each footstep left a charred print in its wake. She approached someone ten people down from him – a man he recognized but barely knew – and reached out for his face. He sat there, mystified, frozen like a mouse as an owl swooped toward it. She stroked his cheek, and tilted her head, staring at his face for several seconds. And then she walked off, and the man she had touched fell backwards into the grass, as still as death.

Mulder watched, horrified, unable to act, as the woman approached the next man. She went down the line, repeating the action, touching each victim gently on the cheek and then walking off. Some fell to the ground, as still as the first, and others stood and walked toward the center of the clearing, standing motionless near the violet flames.

She made it to Hector and Mulder could do nothing. His body was locked, like he was sealed in ice, struck by the presence of this woman.

She was the witch that started this. She had to be.

Hector fell at her touch, and she moved on to Mulder. He tried to look away, tried to turn his head or close his eyes, but her influence was too strong.

He saw two people in her eyes again, one of them furious, the other sad. Heat rolled off of her and chased the chilly morning away. She reached out and put her hand delicately on his cheek, her fingers burning his skin. His desire for justice burned stronger than ever – it was certainly her looking around in his mind. She lingered on him, staring, thoughtful, until he thought the force of her gaze might unravel him entirely.

But she moved on, as she did with the others, and Mulder felt himself falling.

He hit the ground. His last thought was of the violet flame.


	14. Chapter 14

**Chapter 14.**

Mulder blinked, shying away from the bright tip of a flashlight.

"Do you know where you are?"

He put his hand up, protecting himself from the glaring sunlight, the vivid sky, the invasive rasp of a voice. His other hand stroked the grass beneath him, trying to find a dry place to settle, but it was all soaked. It was cold. A breeze made his skin prickle.

"Can you tell me what happened to you?"

Mulder looked into the face of a stranger, blinking, trying to decipher the question. He recognized the badge on her chest, the gun on her hip, but he was trapped in deep mud and could not answer. He only looked at them – a serious officer and a wild-eyed paramedic who was trying to tuck a blanket around him.

"Sir, do you know where you are?"

He squinted, getting a good look around to try and find an answer for her. He was in the grass near a small parking lot, which was filled to the brim with emergency vehicles and flashing lights. Other men dotted the area, some lying down, some sitting up and looking around bleary-eyed. Hector was beside him, sitting with a blanket around his shoulders, stone-faced as tried to answer questions. It seemed that no one had the answers she was looking for.

"What happened?" Mulder croaked.

His officer must have been from Swanford, because he did not know her. She glanced around at the chaos. "We just found you here. Where were you? Can you remember anything?"

Mulder scratched his head, dislodging a baby pine cone from his damp hair. He got another chill and wrapped the blanket tightly around his shoulders. "I was… in a field." He remembered it vividly – there was the field, and the circle of men, and the witch who had two faces. He remembered her hands, the fire in her touch, and then blackness.

"Fox Mulder!"

One of the Wayfield officers, Faith, was streaking toward him from the back of the parking lot. She was one of the newest members of the force, sworn in not six months prior, and it showed in the panicked way she navigated the field.

She stopped beside Hector and handed him a duffel bag. "I got what you asked for, Hector… er, sir." She pointed at Mulder, "I was just on the phone with Dana. She's on her way here."

"Where is here?"

"Just outside of Wayfield." His officer studied Faith with mild disinterest. "We were called in to assist. I need you to sit still so we can assess you."

Mulder sat through an exam, listening to Hector and Faith.

"Have you heard anything else?" Hector asked. "Is everyone here?"

"No." Faith crossed her arms, sinking into a low crouch that made her seem more like a child. "Some seem to be missing. I have a list, and it looks like… well… this can't be everyone."

Hector glanced at Mulder, and then stared at the grass between them. Faith said nothing else, fiddling with her radio until Hector took it from her. Mulder was medically cleared after the paramedic cleaned up the wounds on his leg, left by the cat the night before.

He ended up in the parking lot, standing around behind an ambulance, wearing a donated shirt and holding his blanket with both hands. Hector speculated about what had lured them into the woods, drawing parallels to the strange things he had seen Deloris do, but Mulder thought the two instances were unrelated. Deloris was not a pied piper, singing her victims into the forest. He kept quiet, though, because he was considering how powerful someone would have to be to put an entire town under a spell. The implications were frightening.

Half an hour passed before Scully pulled up.

She was only halfway to them when she said, "Can someone tell me what the hell is going on?"

She stopped in front of them, looking Mulder and Hector up and down, taking in their pajama bottoms and badly fitting clothes.

Mulder opened his blanket to reveal his shirt, "I don't know, but I got this sweet Led Zeppelin shirt out of it. So, I guess we can call today a win."

Scully smiled, striding over and wrapping her arms around him. Mulder closed the blanket on her and they stood there in silence for a few precious seconds. She kissed his cheek, and ran her hand through his hair, and said, "I'm so glad you're okay."

"Good, I was starting to worry."

Scully pulled away but kept a protective hand on him. "Did you find Dalton?" she asked Faith.

Faith shook her head, "Sorry."

"How many still missing?"

"Ten," Faith said, her head hanging low.

"Nancy is losing her mind, poor woman. I need to know everything you know. What happened? Where were you? How did you get away?"

Mulder told the story while they drove back to the Wayfield police station. He spared no detail, because Scully seemed particularly open to his ideas right now. She was desperate, grasping at anything that could help her get Dalton back.

"She… touched you?"

"You don't have to be jealous, Scully. She's not my type." He smiled, trying to lighten her mood, but he was unsuccessful. "Some of the people she touched were knocked out, like me, but some got up and started walking toward the fire."

She responded very quietly, "Do you think they're dead?"

"I don't think so. I mean, why would she go through all the trouble of gathering us there just to kill half of us and let the other half go?"

"Was it half?"

"No… it was more like… a third, or a fourth. It was like she was narrowing us down."

"For what?"

He shrugged. "You seem awfully accepting of all of this."

"I just want Dalton to get home safely – and the others. Tell me more about last night."

He recalled that with reservations, because he did not entirely understand it himself. It made him feel helpless and out of control. "It was a drumming, like a calling. I had no choice but to follow. But before I… I saw…"

"Hmm?"

"I saw the Gunmen."

"You…?" She glanced at him, and he saw that familiar look in her eyes. It was somewhere between concern and pity, an expression he hated on many levels. She was trying to decide if she should play along and patronize him or accuse him of being mentally ill. "W-Why?" she eventually stuttered, for lack of anything better to say.

"Why indeed." He looked out his window to avoid her hard gaze. "I think they were trying to stop me from going. And then there was the cat."

"You saw a cat?"

"A black cat, in the yard. It bit my leg and sort of woke me up. It wasn't enough to stop me, obviously, but it slowed me down." He drew up his pantleg, showing her the tape and gauze the paramedic had left him with. "Look."

Scully winced. "Oww."

"I agree. I think the cat was trying to stop me, too."

"Witches and black cats, Mulder? You must realize-"

"How crazy it sounds? I do."

"It sounds like a cartoon."

"Every modern mythology has something ancient behind it. Witches are known to have familiars to assist them with their magic, and usually familiars are cats. It was believed that wherever a witch had walked, you could see a black cat crossing the path." He could see that he was losing her. "Okay, answer this, then, Scully – if the witch was the one sending me into the woods, why would she send her familiar to try and stop me?"

"Because it was just a feral cat and not a familiar?"

"Because it was _another_ witch."

"Mulder…"

"Maybe the witch in the woods is the one causing trouble, and this other witch, the one who sent the cat, is trying to stop her." He watched her, seeing that she had gone from receptive to closed off. She would only go so far out on a limb, even for him. He changed tracks. "Iden had a vision about the Widow Tree. It must be related. It has to be."

"Does it?" Scully murmured. She sighed. "So, what's our next move?"

"Figuring out who is still missing, and why she kept them."

It was chaos at the police station. Families were outside shouting for answers and victims were being escorted in through the back to be interviewed. Squad cars and ambulances were arriving and departing. Hector was at his desk, sipping coffee, still considerably paler than normal. He sipped from a steaming cup of coffee. Mulder and Scully joined him, and Faith brought him a list of names. Mulder noted Sadler lurking at the back of the station, disheveled.

"I keep getting calls from Nancy," Scully said, frowning at her phone. "I don't have anything to tell her, though. Nothing good, anyway."

"Why did she let us go?" Hector wondered. "How did we get out in that parking lot? What was she doing to us…? How did she…?"

"Easy." Mulder touched his shoulder and felt him trembling. "We can ask those questions later. Right now, we have to focus. She let us go. We weren't what she was looking for. So, what was she looking for? What do these ten people have in common?"

"We got these descriptions from the families," Faith said, turning the list over to reveal another, with more details. "I asked everyone to give us a brief description – eye color, hair color, the last clothes they were wearing – in case we found… bodies."

Scully slipped her arms around one of his. The word 'bodies' must have worried her.

Mulder scanned the list. "Donnie Watts, 19, brown hair and blue eyes… Jessie Fitzgerald, 18, blonde hair and blue eyes… Harold Smithfield, 21… Dalton Redmon, 14… Isaac… 15…."

"Young, all of them." Scully read over his shoulder. "Everyone we found was at least thirty."

"I assume the surroundings woods are being searched with dogs," Mulder said.

"Nothing so far," Faith reported.

"Right, right. Have you spoken with Mora?"

"You think this is related to her?" Hector wondered.

Scully dug a notepad from her pocket. "I interviewed her earlier today, but she didn't say much. I think she was holding back."

Mulder read through the limited notes, finding nothing of interest.

"I want to talk to her."

"I'll arrange it." Faith stepped away to make the call.

"Do you think she had something to do with this?" Hector asked.

Mulder sighed, "Maybe."

Scully squeezed his arm. "Mulder, she was badly hurt. I doubt she could even get out of bed, let alone orchestrate the kidnapping of dozens of people overnight."

"If anything, she might know something that could help us find these missing people. She was attacked at the festival the morning after it burned, and that seems to be where this all began – the break-ins, the kidnappings. Something happened at the festival."

She twisted her lips, her eyes falling to the list again – to one name in-particular, who meant the world to her friend. Dalton. Mulder wished this whole thing could be less personal, more objective, but it was impossible when it was happening in their backyard. Everyone who was missing was from Wayfield, from their own town. Scully treated them in the hospital, Mulder waved at them on his way through town, Iden went to school with them, was taught by them. If even one of those people died, there would be no escaping the guilt.

Faith returned a moment after she'd left, "Mora Gentry is not in her room. She appears to have left the hospital. But… Iden was there."

Mulder and Scully looked at each other first, and then at Faith, and said in unison, " _Iden_?"

Scully jumped up, dialing Nancy, and Mulder grabbed the keys from her coat pocket. "I'll go."

"Are you okay to drive?" Scully asked.

Mulder nodded, making his way outside before she could doubt him. He had no doubt Nancy had never noticed Iden was gone – she was worried about her son, after all, and Iden was a smart kid. If she wanted to leave, she would find a way. But why was she at the hospital? Did she go there seeking out Mora? Was she trying to help their investigation? Was she trying to find Mulder?

A short, silent drive gave him a moment to catch his breath and come to terms with the fact that they had ten missing people to find. Mulder felt that time was running out.


	15. Chapter 15

**Chapter 15.**

Iden was sitting in a chair too tall for her, swinging her legs back and forth and looking at the ground. Her inexplicable appearance at the hospital – in the place of an assault victim, who was now considered aloof – had given Mulder all kinds of ideas about witches and magical spells. Scully had to be the voice of reason and get the truth out of the girl.

She folded her hands on the table. "Why were you there, Iden?"

Iden shrugged. "I was looking for you. Nancy said you were at the hospital."

"Why were you in that room?"

"I dunno."

"Iden."

"I don't know," Iden said again. She finally looked Scully in the face. Her eyes betrayed anxiety, which was understandable, because she was surrounded by curious adults.

She would get nothing from her with an audience like this. Scully took her to the nearest interview room instead, shutting everyone else out. When it was just the two of them, Iden visibly relaxed. She drew her somber eyes over the walls, fiddling with her zipper. She was still too small for the chair, so she swung her legs beneath her.

"Can we talk now, please?" Scully asked.

"Mora was there," Iden said at last.

Scully felt a jolt. She wanted to believe that Mulder was wrong about witches and magic, but if he was right, if this was something supernatural, she wanted Iden to be as far away from it as possible. "Did she say anything to you?"

Iden looked around again, checking that they were alone, and whispered, "She said… well, she said I should never go to the Widow Tree, but I didn't tell her we went already." Iden slid out of her chair and came over to Scully, pausing nearby. "I have to tell you something, but I have to whisper it, okay?"

"Okay."

She got very close, and cupped her hands, and whispered, "Mora told me to tell you Charlotte."

"Charlotte," Scully repeated. "Just that?"

"Charlotte Gregor."

"Is that all she told you?"

"Yes."

"Nothing else? Are you absolutely sure?"

Iden nodded solemnly, looking at the floor.

"Okay. Okay." Scully took her hand, leading her back into the station. She passed the girl to Faith, who took her off to find a snack, and then gave the name to the others.

Hector typed it in. "I have her here… Charlotte Gregor, lifetime resident of Swanford… widow… it looks like her seventeen-year-old son Caleb died recently."

"Died of what?" Scully pressed.

"It just says 'accidental – other.' I'll call and see if I can get more information."

Hector left, dialing, and it was just the two of them for a moment. Scully looked at her partner. His anticipation was palpable. He had already flown way off the deep end when it came to this case. He even looked _excited_ , of all things, despite all the people who were missing, despite recently being missing himself. Scully was worried for her friend, who could lose her son – a pain she knew too well – and worried some mysterious force would rip Mulder away from her, but he looked absolutely thrilled about it all.

 _Anything to escape plain old home_ , she thought, a little bitter.

Mulder seemed unaware of her scrutiny. He twiddled his fingers for a few minutes, and then mused, "She must have bewitched us to find a replacement for her son. She might be tapping into powers she can't control… or no longer wants to control."

He peered at her, waiting for her rebuttal, but she said nothing.

Hector returned, his face grim. He set a notepad down. He had scribbled all over it.

"I got an officer in Swanford on the line and they pulled the file for me. Caleb Gregor was found dead by paramedics, apparently after having been involved in some kind of… ritual. His heart gave out during it. Police decided he participated voluntarily."

"Ritual?" Mulder cut in.

Scully added, before Hector could reply, "His heart gave out? He was seventeen."

"He had a liver condition and he was taking all kinds of meds for it. His autopsy revealed he had stopped taking them. He would have died either way, ritual or no." Hector shrugged at Mulder. "He just said he was in a circle of salt, or something weird like that. Voodoo stuff."

"Witchcraft," Mulder corrected absently.

"Anyway, Mora Gentry was brought in for questioning. Charlotte Gregor alleged that Mora was 'involved' with Caleb before the incident. She wanted Mora thrown in jail, was real vocal about it. Gave the whole force a hard time. But no charges were ever brought."

"Why?" Mulder wondered.

"Police found no signs that he was forced to do anything. He was old enough to stop taking his medicine on his own. He even lied to his mother and told her he was taking them."

" _Involved_?" Scully said, "Involved how?"

Hector shrugged.

"What kind of ritual? What was it for?" Mulder asked. "Was anyone else there?"

He shrugged again. "I told you what they told me. If you want more, you gotta find Mora." He looked at Scully, as if she was the only reasonable one there. "I asked them to look into Charlotte and they sent a car to her house. It looked like she hadn't been home for days. They're sitting on it. Without Mora, we got nothing."

He had barely finished his sentence when his desk phone rang. Scully jumped.

Hector grimaced and picked up. "Officer Queen… Okay… when was this? Okay. I only have a few people to spare. I'm leaving now."

"What happened?" Mulder asked.

"More men have been found wandering in a field. You two coming with?"

"No," Scully said, at the same time that Mulder said, "Yes."

They looked at each other.

Scully stood, "I have to stay with Iden."

"I'll call you," Mulder said, as the men departed.

She sat to herself for a little while, thinking about the case, trying to connect the pieces, but it seemed very disjointed right now. She could not imagine how Charlotte Gregor could abduct so many people, and how she kept dropping them off. Where could she hide them that the search dogs and helicopters could not find? She also wondered about what role Mora played in this. If she were truly responsible for the death of Caleb Gregor, she would be a target. Wherever she was, she was in danger. Whatever motive Charlotte had for kidnapping all those men, it came second to what she had done at the festival. Her attack on Mora had been vicious.

Iden returned, snack in hand, and sat where Mulder had been. Faith hovered nearby, and eventually settled into Hector's desk, fielding calls and filling out forms on the computer.

"Do you think…?" Iden began, her words halting. "Do you think Dalton will be okay?"

Scully had no idea what might happen to Dalton if this was some sort of selection process, like Mulder thought. He could have been one of those just released, or still missing. She knew very little, and it was killing her.

"I don't know."

"Do you think Charlotte is a witch?"

"I think…" Scully paused, ready to shoot down the notion of witches and magic. She had no doubt her partner had made all of it seem real to Iden. But there were forces here that she did not understand. "Charlotte Gregor is acting on grief."

"Mora said you would understand her."

"Hmm?"

"She said you would understand Charlotte. What does that mean?"

Scully felt a cold clamp close around her heart. "Mulder and I… we had a son a long time ago. I had to give him up when he was a baby." She forgave, for the moment, how Mora could know about it, and focused instead on how sad Iden looked. "But a lot of people understand it. You do, too. When we lose the people close to us, it can make us feel like the world is ending."

"What was his name?"

Scully sighed, and said, "William."


	16. Chapter 16

**Chapter 16.**

It was strange to come upon a familiar scene, from a new perspective. Mulder was still feeling some of the effects of his own capture, and here he was, walking through a field where five young men sat dazed and disoriented. Dalton was not among them. None seemed to know where they had come from, but witnesses had seen them wander out of the woods. Search and rescue dogs were on the scene, but the trail was impossible to follow – they had their handlers weaving in and out of the leaves, doubling back and twisting around one another, baying at lifeless trees.

It came down to a good old beat-the-bushes kind of search. Mulder joined the first line, walked a mile with them, and then returned to join the third line. His hopes were low. They were looking at a scruffy, thorny patch of trees with thick undergrowth, but few hiding places. If the dogs could not follow the scent of these men any further than a hundred feet, plain old human eyes had no hope of finding anything. Mulder thought the men might have appeared there once the witch rejected them, popping out of thin air and then wandering into the field. Of course, the search and rescue team thought his idea was a little farfetched.

He was returning from his third search line, starting to really feel the cuts in his leg, when he heard a commotion in the field. Two officers were wrestling with a woman in a hospital robe.

He had not met her yet, but he knew immediately, undoubtedly, that it was Mora Gentry.

"Hey, whoa," he shouted, jogging toward them. "What's going on?"

Hector was one of the officers. He seemed to be holding Mora up as much as he was holding her back. "Ma'am, I told you, you can't go any further. You need to go back to the hospital."

Her injuries were grim. Her lip was split, one of her eyes swelling around the socket. She had bruises on her thin arms, on her exposed legs. But she had a hell of a lot of fight in her. She struggled against the officers, trying to march forward despite barely being able to stand.

"No, I need you to listen. I need someone to listen to me," she said. One of her legs gave out and Hector caught her. Her voice sunk, like the energy had cycled away from her. " _Please_."

Mulder reached out, taking the place of the other officer, "I can take her. I'll get her back to the station, at least." He took her arm, saying, "I'll listen to you. Come on. I'll listen. Just come with me."

"You sure?" Hector let go, but hesitated. "She's a fighter."

"Yeah. You have more important things to worry about." Mulder motioned to the field, and then got both arms around Mora as she started to collapse again. "We needed to talk to her, anyway. I'll do this. I don't think I can go another round with those woods anyway."

Hector still seemed unsure, but he left him to it.

Mulder helped the beaten woman to his car, into the passenger's seat. She laid against the seat, breathing heavily, her eyes shut for a moment. He waited, giving her a moment.

"I pulled you out of that field," she said at last.

He leaned into the door, "Pardon?"

"I pulled you out of that field, and the others." She cracked one eye open, a smile spreading over her broken face, and then fading just as quickly. "You boys took it out of me."

Mulder crouched in front of her, "You said you wanted to talk. I'm listening."

She opened both eyes, finally, and stared at him, saying nothing.

"You told Iden that Charlotte Gregor was responsible for all those people going missing," he prompted. "How could she be capable of that?"

She decided to talk, at last, in a tired voice. "I think Charlotte is _hosting_ … someone else."

"A witch?"

She nodded, her eyes sliding shut again. "If you believe in that kind of thing."

"I do."

Her smile returned briefly, secretly, and faded again. "One of the witches who was burned in the Widow Tree Massacre has taken over her."

Mulder tried to channel his partner. "But those weren't witches that were burned, right?"

"Some were. Some were widows, like the story says. Imagine all that rage and frustration… being captured and burned, called unnatural, called sinful, when all you try to do is exist." She paused, her eyes open again, now staring at the seat below her. "And then Charlotte, filled with so much grief. When she makes her choice, it ends violently."

"How can you know that?"

"Because Caleb is dead, and nothing can bring him back." Her voice became very serious all of the sudden. She sighed and winced at the same time. "If this goes on for much longer, Charlotte will be consumed. Everything that she is will be overwhelmed."

Mulder stood, gasping when his leg straightened out and the wounds from the cat that attacked him crinkled and reopened. "I'm sick of ghosts," he commented.

"She never died," Mora said, "She only changed."

He started, "How-?"

But she interrupted, "We have to find her and stop her before this gets more out of control. Charlotte has no control over her actions. We can save her without hurting her."

He had so many questions, all circling around one central point. Mora had basically admitted to being a witch herself. He wanted to know everything. He wanted all the answers, to unravel all the mysteries over the centuries. But the urgency of the situation stopped him. Mora was looking at him desperately, badly beaten and barely awake, but still driven to save Charlotte. He thought of Scully, of her friend's young son, and held himself back.

"Okay. Where do we start?"


	17. Chapter 17

**Chapter 17.**

Her story was brief, and it was obvious she was holding a lot back. She said no more to Scully than she did to Mulder about what was going on with Charlotte Gregor, and even that tame admission that Charlotte was no longer in control made Scully cock a doubtful eyebrow.

But it was not the story about witches that gave her such a sour look.

"When her son died, Charlotte alleged that you were 'involved' with him," Scully said flatly, when the woman had only just finished talking. Her eyes were hard and cold. "He was nearly a decade younger than you."

Mora had recovered some of her strength since their conversation in the field, but she still seemed like she should be in a hospital room, and not a police station. Still, she held herself with some pride, and no anger. She looked calmly at Scully. "It wasn't like that."

"What was it like, then?" Scully responded shortly.

"Caleb was my student. He was gifted."

"Do you believe he had magical abilities?"

Mulder winced at her wording. She might say something like that to him, but never in a tone so sharp. He expected it to shut the other woman down, but Mora didn't seem to notice.

"He had many gifts. I loved him very much. I tried to help him, since the medicine failed him." She smiled sadly, toying with her fingers in her lap, almost like a child would.

"Do you believe yourself to be a witch?" Scully asked.

Mora did not hear the question, and if she did, she was very good at pretending. "Charlotte disapproved of our friendship. She trusted modern medicine to a fault. She wouldn't open her eyes to what was happening to him – Caleb was dying, faster or slower, the end was coming. He was suffering. He wanted to stop the treatment, but his mother refused to allow it."

"You had no right-" Scully began.

"Shh, shh," Mulder cut in, putting his hand on her knee. She was obviously furious, frustrated by how this story was going, but Mulder wanted to hear the rest of it.

Mora went on, not noticing the interruption, "He told me he stopped taking his medicine one day, and he asked me to stage a cleansing ritual, to prepare him… for the end. I was there for him when he died. I did what he asked of me."

"What happened then, with Charlotte?" Mulder prompted.

"Charlotte never forgave me. She sent me angry letters, death threats. But it was all grief. Caleb meant the world to her – she just… she couldn't see. Her obsession to keep him alive drove them apart in the end."

"Did she ever make it seem like she might follow through on her threats?"

Mora shook her head, "She was dabbling in witchcraft. I was trying to keep an eye on her, but somehow she knew… we were talking at the festival when I met your daughter."

"She told me you were arguing," he said.

"I think that was the final straw." Mora crossed her arms, appearing afraid for the first time. She looked between them, Mulder, who was enraptured by her story, and Scully, who was fuming beneath the surface, and finally hesitated to continue.

Mulder searched for a gentle way to keep her talking. "We saw the fire that night. I know you told Scully that you didn't remember anything when you were in the hospital, but what about now?"

She sighed but said nothing.

Scully jumped in, her voice evening out, "Did Charlotte start the fire?"

"It was an accident, I'm sure," Mora said, almost defensively. She looked pleadingly between them. "I know you want a villain in all of this. People were hurt. But-"

"You were one of those people," Scully said.

"I know. But I think the fire started when she was… overtaken. It was only half her at that point. She came to find me, glowing inside, with fury and magic… And all that energy had to go somewhere. She tried to kill me." Mora smiled, a secret little smile, "But she never really listened, never _believed_ , before Caleb died. She would have known I was fireproof."

Scully gave Mulder an 'oh, brother' glance.

Mora went on, "I was safe at the hospital, out of sight and out of mind, so she focused on something else. She wants him back. But she doesn't understand that dead is dead. Caleb is gone."

She paused there, letting the finality of her words sink in.

Scully took a deep breath. "Can you help us locate Charlotte Gregor and the people she took?"

Mora took a long time to answer, "I know where she is. The Widow Tree."

"You told Iden never to go there," Scully said.

Mulder glanced at her and she shrugged.

"I did. But I will. Just this one time."

Her voice was very grim. Her tone gave Mulder a bad feeling. She seemed suddenly resolved, and it made him wonder if something bad was going to happen to her when she got near the tree.

"I think we should go quietly, without backup," Mora said, as if sensing Scully was about to call in a SWAT team. "Charlotte is very dangerous right now, very unpredictable. More people could get hurt if she feels threatened."

"No. No way." Scully was already out of her chair, phone in hand.

"You have to trust me. I can help you get those people back safely, but not if the police swarm the place and start shooting."

"Mulder, can I talk to you?" Scully asked, already walking off.

He followed her out back, where the police station backed up to an empty lot. It was full of overflow police cars at the moment from the surrounding counties.

"We have to let Hector in on this, so he can notify the sheriff of Swanford," she said at once.

Mulder crossed his arms, "Do we?"

She was incredulous, "Yes!"

"We're not with the police."

"Hector let us help with this case. He's using us as civilian assets. So, yes, we are."

"Scully, how many times have we had to go around the law to solve a case? You know as well as I do that when we're dealing with the unconventional, law enforcement tends to make it worse."

"But we don't do that anymore. We're not in the FBI. This is not _our_ case."

"What do you call what we're doing right now, then?"

She stared at him, frustrated, for several seconds, and then she threw her hands in the air and started pacing. "I knew it was a bad idea going to that festival! But I just thought maybe – _maybe_ – one of your fantasies would prove false. Now, here we are, with a woman who thinks she's a witch, and missing boys, and black cats, and _you_ acting like we dusted off an X-file and got involved with this on purpose!"

He brushed off her use of 'fantasies,' and said, "I think this case might be stressing you out a little."

"You think?"

He hated it, but he was getting frustrated with _her_ , too.

"You can stay here if you want. Call in Hector. Get the wheels of bureaucracy turning. Let those snipers come in and blow her brains out from a thousand yards away. And I'll go with Mora, because I want an ending where everyone _lives_."

She snapped at him, "Right, and I just want them all to die." She used the same sharp tone from earlier, "We'll do it your way. We'll go in, cowboy style, and try to resolve this with just the three of us. But if those people die, if one of _us_ dies, I hope you remember that it was your choice and not mine."

"I gave you an out."

"Get real. I'm not letting you run off with that lunatic _alone_."

She went back inside before he could say anything.

He wondered if this meant he had won the argument, or if she was just saving it for a later date. Mulder was almost willing to put money on the latter. And he knew where it would go, too. It was a familiar fight, a familiar anxiety. Scully said he wanted more from life than having a home and a family, and he said he could give up the paranormal for her.

Sometimes he wondered which one of them was right.


	18. Chapter 18

**Chapter 18.**

It was a short drive to the tree, but Mulder still managed to squeeze more information out of the broken woman in the backseat. He was beautiful in that way, curious and full of wonder, able to befriend anyone and believe anything. Scully thought this particular case pushed the boundaries of reason, but Mulder was still ready to believe.

"What are your beliefs, Ms. Gentry?"

Mora was looking out the window as she responded. Her tone was quiet, resolved. "You can call me Mora – and what do you mean?"

"I mean, are you a practicing Wiccan?"

Scully had to, regrettably, keep her eyes on the road, but she imagined a smile based on the change in tone. "You could say that."

"You say that like that answer is complicated."

"Modern wiccans base their beliefs and rituals on ancient Druidry, which was an entirely oral tradition with no written records. Wicca is an attempt at recreating it. I practice the old form."

"Is that what you were teaching Caleb?"

"Yes."

"How did you meet him?"

She was silent.

"Do you own a black cat, by chance?"

Scully glanced at Mulder, who seemed dead serious despite his ridiculous question.

"I did, a while ago. But he wanders now."

For a few precious seconds, both of them were silent.

"I think I connected so well with Caleb because I wanted to be a parent very badly. I lost my chance a long time ago, and now I've lost it again."

Scully felt a sudden unwanted stab of sympathy. She had also lost her chance when she lost her son, but finding Iden was a help to her hurt. It seemed Mora had found the same thing, but then lost him just as quickly. Scully had the sudden desire to see Iden.

"If you don't mind me asking, what are the core tenants of your beliefs? I know a bit about the history of druidism, but not nearly enough."

"What do you know?"

Mulder seemed pleased to be asked. "I know they inhabited Gaul, before it was conquered by the Romans and renamed. I know that Julius Caesar thought the druids were civilized, wise, and noble – but he also believed they had almost absolute control over society, almost akin to the age of the god-kings when priests whispered in the ears of monarchs. Of course, everyone has heard of the wicker man sacrifice. A lot of scholars believe rumors of locking prisoners up in a wicker man and setting them on fire was just Roman propaganda, designed to turn public opinion against the druidic people."

Mora responded, "I believe it was."

"Wicca is entirely separate from ancient druidism though, isn't it?"

"So is modern druidism." Mora had more life in her voice at this discussion. "I told you, the traditions of old are unknown because their teachings were not written down. Wicca and modern druidism are just echoes, outlines, of what was."

"How can you practice the old ways then, if they're unknown?"

They arrived at that moment, with his question hanging in the air. He was looking back at Mora, but her attention was on the tree. Scully pulled into the nearby park, the only car present.

"You should stay here," Mora said to Mulder. "You already fell for her siren song once."

Mulder seemed ready to protest, but Scully said, "I agree."

He gave her a dirty look, "Do you have your gun?"

"I do."

She wanted nothing less than to go on a field trip with Mora, but she had already lost Mulder once to the influence of Charlotte. She was not willing to lose him again. She took her gun out and they walked together, a deep sense of discomfort settling into her chest. It was a pleasant, sunny day and they were surrounded by clear fields that rolled into forests, but something felt wrong to her.

Mora reached the tree and put her hand on the trunk, circling it. "I might tell you to run. I need you to trust me and do as I say."

She was limping along, all bruised up, but she still seemed confident in herself, strangely regal and powerful. Scully nodded.

They had barely crossed the field beyond the tree when a cry of rage came from the forest beyond. It was almost inhuman, a sharp, frightening sound that Scully had heard many versions of – it was loss, and emptiness, and despair. It was the furthest you could plummet from reason.

Charlotte walked from the woods, setting a brisk pace toward them. She was still too far to properly see, but her features were rigid.

"Go into the woods," Mora said, stopping where she was. "You'll find them there."

"I'm not leaving you here," Scully objected.

"You have to get to them while she's distracted." Mora had her eyes locked onto the other woman, "Go and get them, and then you can come back for me."

Scully was torn, but off to the east, where Mora was pointing, she saw movement. Dalton had to be there, and the other boys. She took a step toward them and stopped, groaning, "Get behind me."

"No." Mora's eyes flashed, and she finally looked at Scully with her one good eye – the other was starting to droop as the swelling went down. "You have to go for them now, while you can see them. Keep your eyes on them. Never look away. You have to go! _Go_!"

Scully left her reluctantly, turning to the woods again and breaking into a run. She could see them, becoming clearer with every step, people standing absolutely still and staring ahead as if they were in a trance. She heard that cry of rage again behind her, heard shouting, knew that Charlotte was getting closer to Mora, but she did not look back.

She could not look back.


	19. Chapter 19

**Chapter 19.**

Mulder was out of the car when he heard the first scream.

A scene was unfolding on the other side of the Widow Tree, in the sunny meadow beyond.

Mora was standing still, wearing her borrowed clothes, blanketed with bruises and appearing suddenly very small. Charlotte was marching toward her, unbridled fury seeping into her every action, into the very makeup of her voice,

"You killed him! You killed him!"

And the responses came sweetly, soothingly, as Mora pleaded with the furious woman, "I gave him release! I helped him. That was all I did."

"You stole years of his life!"

"I gave him peace."

"You took him away!" Charlotte cried, her voice breaking as the fury gave way to sickening grief, "You took him away! Bring him back!"

"Caleb is gone. He can never come back."

Charlotte was getting closer, closer, and a fire kicked up in her wake, wreathing the field. Mulder lurched forward to make it inside before it completely enclosed them in a ring of flame. He tried to speak, but his voice was drowned out by theirs.

Mora shouted, "I loved him too. I would have done anything to help him. He asked me to _help_ him. He was suffering, Charlotte. Every day was a nightmare. He prayed that he wouldn't wake up in the morning. Don't you understand?"

Charlotte finally reached her and lunged.

Mulder drew his gun.

Mora cast an arm toward him and the gun flew from his hands – in the very same moment, Charlotte hit her. She backhanded her across the face, the impact making an unreal _BOOM_ and flinging Mora backward, head over heels, until she came to a brutal, sudden stop.

Mulder went to her, falling to his knees and trying to move her. Mora was dazed, her eyes fluttering, one half of her face shimmering red from the impact.

Charlotte was still for a moment, as if thinking about what she had done, and then she turned toward them and started walking again. In her wake, the flames towered, and the circle began to shrink before her. Mulder dragged Mora forward before they were both engulfed. It was getting harder to breathe, harder to even hear himself talk as the fire crackled and hissed around him. It was a heat like no other, a supernatural, sky-less inferno.

"Stop this!" he shouted at Charlotte, "Stop this! Caleb wouldn't want this! Think about him! Think about your son!"

But his words meant nothing.

"Leave me," Mora moaned, trying to push him away.

He realized suddenly this had been her intention all along. She knew that confronting Charlotte would end this way. She had not raised a hand, not fought back at all, and now she lay there, ready for it to end. "Get up!" he gasped, his throat tightened for lack of oxygen. "We have to go now!"

"Leave me," she repeated. "Once she has me, the fire will die. Your partner has the boys. I should have saved him. I could have stopped this."

Charlotte was upon them.

She reached out.

Mulder slapped her hand away and she lashed back at him, sending him rolling into the grass. His head cracked into the butt of his gun. He scrambled for it, rolling onto one knee.

"No!" Mora said, throwing an arm toward him again.

Charlotte grabbed her by the throat and held her up in the air.

She had her there, suspended. Mora flailed her legs, grasping at the strong hand that held her throat, choking for breath. It was dangerously smoky in the flames, obscuring his view, choking him as well. His eyes burned, his skin felt like it was going to combust.

Mulder shot Charlotte in the leg.

Every second the flames grew higher, wreathing around, spinning in a cyclone only feet from them and scorching everything they touched. And every second Mora came closer to losing her life, as the hand around her throat tightened, and the fight in her legs faded.

"Let her go!" he coughed, " _Please_! Please let her go! Charlotte!"

His finger slid over the trigger. He fired, hitting her once in the center of her chest and once in her side. Charlotte released Mora immediately, and she hit the ground at her feet.

Suddenly the sky was there again, and the trees in the distance. Mulder leaned on his hands and his knees, focusing on breathing, as the fire died around them. It shrunk until it was only a few inches tall, crackling on the dried grass, and then it faded away.

Charlotte was dying.

When he looked up, he found her slowly sinking to the ground. She curled onto her side, holding her chest, and stared at him incredulously. He swore, for a split second, there was a second person looking out from her eyes – and then both of them were gone.

Mora dragged herself to Charlotte, resting her head above her heart and listening. She waited far too long, and then looked sadly at Mulder.

"I'm sorry," he said, sincerely, his voice raspy.

He hated nothing more than taking life, but there was a particular pain in taking uniqueness out of the world. It was like part of him had died as well.

Mora touched her throat, the red ribs that Charlotte's fingers had left, and looked at the body with wide, glassy eyes, "She was consumed. She was never going to make it back." Grief was obvious on her face, and curiosity, and anger. A few tears slipped down and mixed with the blood. "I should have seen it sooner. I let her down – and Caleb. I only wish I knew who…"

"Who?"

"Who did this to her," Mora clarified.

"What do you-?"

Mora staggered to her feet, "I have to go." She drew her borrowed shirt up and wiped the blood from her face. "I would appreciate it if you didn't tell anyone I was here. I've tried to make a life for myself here and I would like to stay."

"You need to go back to the hospital."

"I'll be fine."

She said nothing else, only walked off, heading for the woods. She disappeared when she hit the trees, moving behind a trunk and never reemerging on the other side. Mulder was admittedly fascinated by her. She had more secrets hidden away.

He sat there with the body, waiting.

Scully came from the woods moments later, the remaining young captives behind her. She got one look at him sitting there and started running, shouting orders, phone in hand.

She stopped short of him, almost like she had crashed into some invisible barrier. She had noticed the body, and maybe, for a moment, thought it was Mora. She gave a sigh. "Charlotte Gregor."

He nodded.

"And Mora…?"

"She left, but she kindly asked us to forget she was here."

Scully ventured closer, taking a knee beside him, carefully avoiding the scorched earth all around. "What happened here?"

"I had to," he said, handing the gun over.

She took it, switched the safety on, and tucked it into her pocket. She held his head against her chest in a quick, tight embrace, and then looked over his injuries. "You spend more time in the hospital than me, and I work there."

He snorted.

"Can you walk? Come on, up we go. One foot in front of the other."

It looked like everyone had made it out alive – except for Charlotte Gregor. Mulder and Scully waited with the group of very confused young men in the parking lot until help arrived. Mulder was suddenly very tired. He ended up sitting on the ground behind their car while Scully ran one hand nervously through his hair. Every rural unit within twenty miles showed up, crowding the place with ambulances and police cars, and even two fire trucks.

"How are the boys?" Mulder wondered from the back of his very own ambulance. He had a thick blanket over one shoulder while the paramedic checked out a small burn on the other.

Scully jumped in with him. "Everyone is fine – hungry, thirsty, tired, confused, but fine. Nancy came to pick up Dalton and the others are getting rides back to the station. It looks like everyone made it out…" She frowned, "Almost everyone."

"I had no choice."

"I know. I know that."

It was a quiet ride to the hospital. Mulder laid down on the stretched, an oxygen mask on his face, and Scully sat beside him holding his hand.

Until she said, "I wonder if we should burn that tree."

He lifted his mask and answered, "I don't know if it would make a difference. Mora said something about the witches that were burned there… they never died, just changed. And when-"

He started coughing, unable to go on.

Scully pressed his mask back down, "You should have stayed in the car," she chided.

He forced the mask up again, "And let her sacrifice herself to Charlotte?"

She patiently put it back down, "Sometimes I have the luxury of just worrying about whether or not you're safe and forgetting everyone else. Sometimes." She stroked his hair, sending some soot into the air. "I think they should consider relocating the festival, out of respect for the dead. Was it created to honor them, or capitalize on them?"

He shrugged.

She went on, "Probably a little bit of both."


	20. Chapter 20

**Chapter 20.**

Mulder dozed, trying to stay awake while an intrepid explorer explained the differences between two different species of caiman on the discovery channel. It had been a week since the death of lifelong Swanford resident Charlotte Gregor, a week since dozens of men were kidnapped in the dead of the night, a week since Mora Gentry had dropped off the map – and a week since he had burned his shoulder in a magical inferno, and the damn thing still hurt.

He was reluctant to go to bed, because he always fell asleep on his good shoulder, and then rolled over to his sore shoulder at some point and woke up with stabbing pain in his skin. If he fell asleep on the couch, he could just slowly slouch down, only worried about a bad back in the morning.

He was half in and half out of a daydream when Scully nudged his knee.

"Hey, you coming to bed?"

He shook his head, throwing his good arm up and stretching, and resisting the urge to stretch the other one. He grimaced at her, "I just need another week."

"If only you were a few inches closer, or a few inches further away from that fire," Scully said, sinking down beside him, on his good side, and crossing her legs on the couch. "It would have hurt a lot less. It got down to the dermis in a few areas."

"I'll take that into consideration next time I jump into a fiery vortex of death."

Scully sat up a little, cupping his face gently and leaning to lay a brief, sweet kiss to his cheek. When she sunk back down, she wrapped both her arms around one of his and laid her forehead on his shoulder, sighing, "I love you."

"I'm sensing a 'but' here."

"But I hate how much you loved this case."

He had seen this coming. While he was in the hospital – as brief of a stay as it was – she had been with him the whole time, this thoughtful look on her face. She was not just worried about him but trying to find a way to say something. He knew what it would be. He knew it when she dragged him out of the police station to try and convince him to involve Hector in their plans.

She looked at him, blue eyes resolute, "You could have died. Iden could have been hurt. You ended up killing someone, and you let Mora go, and you even lied to the police when they asked you about her. I know you think you had no other choices here, but you did. You did, and you walked us into a corner with nothing but faith to go on."

"I know."

"I know you were made for this. I know it makes you happy. I know that what brought us together in the first place was what I hate the most right now – this frustrating, endless, childish quest for something _more_. But we have someone else to think about now, Mulder. We both agreed to be parents to Iden. She needs us. She needs us to be alive, she needs you to be _here_."

He waited.

"I need you to be here," she continued, quieter, "I built my life around you." She was quiet for a long moment, looking anywhere but his face, and then she said, "I need a break."

His heart jumped. "What?"

"Not a break, like that," she said quickly, with a smile, "I mean, I need you to take a break. I want you to take a break from all of this. I want you to put your fingers in your ears and close your eyes whenever anyone mentions anything out of the ordinary. I want you to do that for me. Because if you keep going like this, I'll follow you. You know I will. And I need a break, Mulder. Please tell me that you understand."

He was careful in organizing his thoughts. When she said she needed a break, his mind had shot off a hundred miles an hour, in outrage, in hurt, in fear, and it made him wonder what he would do, who he would become, if she stepped out of his life. In the wake of that, anything she asked seemed perfectly reasonable.

"I'll stop. I will."

"Promise?"

She was so beautiful. Mulder had always been in love with the shimmer in her eyes.

"I swear. I'll call Skinner and see if he can throw me a few profiling cases."

"But not the one he keeps harassing you about?"

"Oh, not, definitely not. Big 'ol claw mark, shadows on the walls, it just screams weird. I could send him a profile, though, just to help him out. From the comfort of home."

She laughed, sliding back and inviting him to lay his head in her lap. Once he was down, she seized the remote and flipped to a true crime documentary, one hand stroking his back.

He said, "I wonder what would happen to me if you ever left. I would probably end up obsessed with my work, sleep deprived, spouting crazy conspiracy theories to everyone."

"Is that different from how you are now?"

"Well, now I have someone who _wants_ to hear my theories. Big difference."

"Want is a strong word."

"I was talking about Iden."

She smirked, "Oh, yeah, I would definitely take her with me."

"Worried I would let her starve?"

"You can keep the dog."

He shut his eyes, tuning in to the faint sound of her heart beating. "Mulder and Frankie, a dynamic duo who hunt monsters and aliens together. Sounds like a graphic novel waiting to happen."

"Go to sleep. I'll keep you off your burn."

"Mm."

Her lips touched his head one last time, and then he was out.

XxX

 **END OF EPISODE 4: THE WIDOW TREE .**

 _Next time on the X-Files…_

 **Episode 5** **:** **Baby Doe** : After the FBI asks them to look into the unusual death of a young boy, Mulder and Scully uncover a dark conspiracy involving the engineering of human children.


End file.
